Atheism
Community Guide
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Statement of Purpose
- This is a support and conversation community for people who don't believe in gods.
- Superstition hucksters have no reason to subscribe or post here at all.
- If you are looking to debate or proselytize, options will be linked lower in the sidebar.
Acceptable
- Honest questions or conversations.
- Discussions on parenting or advice.
- Struggles, frustrations, coming out.
- Atheist memes. We can have fun!
- News headlines relevant to atheism.
Unacceptable
Depending on severity, you might be warned before adverse action is taken.
- Anything against site rules.
- Illegal and/or NSFW material.
- Troll posts and comments. There will be no attempt to explain what that means.
- Leading questions, agenda pushing, or disingenuous attempts to bait members.
- Personal attacks or flaming.
Inadvisable
- Self promotion or upvote farming.
- Excessive shitposting or off-topic discussion.
Application of warnings or bans will be subject to moderator discretion. Feel free to appeal. If changes to the guidelines are necessary, they will be adjusted.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a group that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of any other group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you you will be banned on sight.
Provable means able to provide proof to the moderation, and, if necessary, to the community.
~ /c/nostupidquestions
If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!
Connect with Atheists
- Matrix: #atheism:envs.net
Help and Support Links
- Freedom From Religion Foundation
- The Secular Therapy Project
- Secular Students Alliance
- Black Nonbelievers
- The Clergy Project
- Atheist Alliance International
- Sunday Assembly
- Atheist Ireland
- Atheism UK
- Atheists United
Streaming Media
This is mostly YouTube at the moment. Podcasts and similar media - especially on federated platforms - may also feature here.
- Atheist Debates - Matt Dillahunty
- Rationality Rules
- Friendly Atheist
- Making Sense with Sam Harris
- Cosmic Skeptic
- Genetically Modified Skeptic
- Street Epistemology
- Armored Skeptic
- NonStampCollector
Orgs, Blogs, Zines
- Center for Inquiry
- American Atheists
- Humanists International
- Atheist Republic
- The Brights
- The Angry Atheist
- History for Atheists
- Rationalist International
- Atheist Revolution
- Debunking Christianity
- Godless Mom
- Atheist Freethinkers
Mainstream
Bibliography
Start here...
...proceed here.
- God is Not Great (Hitchens)
- The God Delusion (Dawkins)
- The End of Faith (Harris)
- Why I Am Not a Christian (Russell)
- Letter to a Christian Nation (Harris)
Proselytize Religion
From Reddit
As a community with an interest in providing the best resources to its members, the following wiki links are provided as historical reference until we can establish our own.
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The US is probably one of the furthest nations from actual "christian values".
There are no actual christian values. It's all deadly bullshit.
Would Jesus heal the sick? Nope. Not unless they entertain his racism.
Would Jesus feed the poor? Not when he could waste valuable resources on himself in a useless, vain ceremony.
It is narcissism. The only consistent christian value I can discern is "I will do anything if I think it will please god (my own ego)."
You nailed it. That and Divine Command Theory. If God says it's good, then it's good (but only according to my interpretation of my translation of copies of copies of oral traditions).
That's pure cynacism. The Christian faiths have a very well-defined ideological framework based on a number of canonical texts with established interpretations. To say people fail to live up to these values isn't particularly shocking. To claim the values don't exist is ignorant.
It's aspiration. You set the bar high and try to clear it, knowing it's a hard thing to do but still believing its worth doing.
To heal the sick? You make it sound like health care isn't a cornerstone of modern industrial economies. Or that public health care isn't routinely included in modern state functions. To feed the poor? We've got everything from SNAP benefits to Food Banks. Panhandlers hit the bricks with a certain degree of confidence that their neighbors do feel inclined to lend aid. Shelters exist. Relief organizations exist. People who dedicate their whole lives to providing aid to their neighbors fucking exist. And if you don't know of any, that's more on you than on an organization you don't attend and whose charitable works you don't want to look at.
Is the only value you've chosen to acknowledge.
FFS, my local Food Bank has people who roll out of Church and show up to provide aid every day. I know people by name, because I see them there on every visit.
My mother, a die-hard Catholic, has worked with Caritas Internationalis for twenty years. Pretty much since the day she became an empty-nester she's been volunteering her time and her love and whatever money she can afford to a project bigger than herself for the benefit of as many of her neighbors as she can help.
I've got an ex-girlfriend whose mother was a missionary and a preacher, fully committed to ending homelessness in her little corner of Houston. She would help her mom make meals every Saturday and hand them out, then plan out where they would distribute the food. Often, they were out doing this in defiance of the local police. Her mom's been arrested more times than she can count, and it's only the good grace of the (Christian) municipal judge that she keeps getting let out and fines keep getting waved.
These people are real. They exist. They do shit, in no small part because they believe it is a religious obligation. And they hold to that religious obligation because they genuinely believe in the utopian vision of a world without sin and hate and horror. They learned these values from their Christian Parents and their Christian Neighbors and their Christian pastors. And they pass them on to their children, whether or not those kids or their grandkids hold to the spiritual end of the doctrine.
At worst, it's slightly hyperbolic. You said it yourself:
The bible conflicts with itself, which is why interpretation is necessary. Many of those interpretations are in direct conflict. That is not well-defined at all.
The core value of christianity is to do and say whatever your ego wants you to.
Pretending to know things that cannot be known is arrogant narcissism.
I live in the United States. Guess which programs were just defunded by an administration that claims empathy is a sin?
I'm glad they do. Unfortunately, some of them choose to repeat baseless, deadly bullshit. We would all be better off if they would stop that. And many believers pray for god to feed people instead of actually taking any steps that would accomplish it.
It's the one under all the bullshit. Please stop falling for the bullshit, people are dying for this.
The cult created these problems so it could sell us the cure, but the cure is poison, they demand complete submission.
My christian parents hit me if I didn't want to go to church. They think they're going to heaven for violently brainwashing my brothers and I.
Stop defending abusive death cults. Everyone is better without superstition.