It always starts from the assumption that I’m an atheist too. They’re all friends, by the way, so don’t picture some kind of weird high-pressure pitches on the street.
Also I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to conflate being atheist and being anti-religious - my friend in this story however is in the “religion is ultimately the cause of every war in history” camp.
Anyway, very basically, I’d done something nice. Another work friend was talking about it, and my anti-religion friend responded with “see, he’s an objectively nice person, no religion needed or anything”. And it was at this point I revealed my secret identity, and the discussion began.
Just for balance, over my 44 years, I’ve also had a Scientology pitch, a Jehovah’s Witnesses pitch (old-school knocking on the door style), and an uncomfortably high-pressure pitch from what I’m sure was one of those churches set up to scam immigrants.
But outside of those, the main people who have tried to change me have been friends with strong anti-religious views.
Ah, yes, well. Many people see the root of all evil not in money, but in organized religion, and that’s sometimes hard to emotionally separate from the (perceived) irrationality of capital-R religion. So, yeah: in friend groups, I can see debates about religion that veer into proselytizing, although – again – people generally don’t preach to the already-converted except in sectarian wars, which in the US have subsided as religious communities have solidified against the greater threat of atheism.
I grant, in any case, that even atheism can have strong advocates who try to convert people. I do think that it depends on who you are: being an athiest, I’ve never had an athiest pressure me about my religious beliefs, and have only been prosthelytized to by Christians… but that’s to be expected, right?
I live in the US and in real life Ive had far more atheists be assholes about religion. That said, Christians are in power, so they likely dont feel the need to be so loud.
It always starts from the assumption that I’m an atheist too. They’re all friends, by the way, so don’t picture some kind of weird high-pressure pitches on the street.
Also I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to conflate being atheist and being anti-religious - my friend in this story however is in the “religion is ultimately the cause of every war in history” camp.
Anyway, very basically, I’d done something nice. Another work friend was talking about it, and my anti-religion friend responded with “see, he’s an objectively nice person, no religion needed or anything”. And it was at this point I revealed my secret identity, and the discussion began.
Just for balance, over my 44 years, I’ve also had a Scientology pitch, a Jehovah’s Witnesses pitch (old-school knocking on the door style), and an uncomfortably high-pressure pitch from what I’m sure was one of those churches set up to scam immigrants.
But outside of those, the main people who have tried to change me have been friends with strong anti-religious views.
Ah, yes, well. Many people see the root of all evil not in money, but in organized religion, and that’s sometimes hard to emotionally separate from the (perceived) irrationality of capital-R religion. So, yeah: in friend groups, I can see debates about religion that veer into proselytizing, although – again – people generally don’t preach to the already-converted except in sectarian wars, which in the US have subsided as religious communities have solidified against the greater threat of atheism.
I grant, in any case, that even atheism can have strong advocates who try to convert people. I do think that it depends on who you are: being an athiest, I’ve never had an athiest pressure me about my religious beliefs, and have only been prosthelytized to by Christians… but that’s to be expected, right?
I live in the US and in real life Ive had far more atheists be assholes about religion. That said, Christians are in power, so they likely dont feel the need to be so loud.
The Christian belief is as trivially obviously fake as Zeus and has done a lot of harm
No shit.
Most of the planet suffers from some type of this mental illness and it threatens our survival as a species
Are you literally just a bot? begone.