A Question For the European Atheists

[Tanker]

My question, like so many, is born of ignorance. Why do you seek out atheists online? I know for my part and many other American atheists I like talkng with like minded individuals. Which I suppose is why we all come. However religious presence in the U.S is far more oppresive then it is Europe. Finding like minded indivduals can be difficult for many here. Even living in Oregon one of the most liberal states with one of the highest atheist demographics I have often felt alienated and have even been threatened for my beliefs (or lack thereof).

While I don't doubt that many of our European members have had problems for beng an athiest I have a hard time believing most of them have had the...issues that many Americans do. Or even have too much trouble finding like minded individuals near by. So why seek an atheist community online?

I would like to state again that I'm just ignorant and am not attacking anyone. I'm glad to know the various Europeans here I'm also glad to have your pespective on so many issues. Thank you for your consideration.

[kelltrill]

I suppose it would depend on which communities you are in. Even though you might live in a typically agnostic-tolerant country does not mean your friends and family are secular at all, which could make it hard to seek out people who share your opinions. Also, even within atheist friendship groups it might still be difficult to debate things because of a clash of personalities or the like, hence it being easier to be more intellectually stimulated or challenged online.
I'm not European, I'm African, so I don't know what their motives would be personally, I'm just offering my opinion.

I am on this forum and ThinkAtheist because I have one atheist friend. One. A few agnostics and apathetics (that should be a word), and a lot of Christian and Muslim friends. Which, although it makes for an engaging group, can get very frustrating.

[Tom62]

Here in "old" Europe we also have our problems with religion. Since the last two decades we've seen a huge increase of Muslim interference in daily life. There is  huge fear of Muslim fundamentalism, so most politicians try to please the Muslim communities as much as possible. That resulted in introducing the sharia law in Great Britain, removing pictures that Muslims find offending from exhibitions, discrimination lawsuits, demonize people who are against Muslim fundamentalism, etc. etc . At the same time we now see one child abuse case after another become public. Hundreds of children were abused by Catholic priests and nuns in the Netherlands alone. And what does this great "holy" imbecile in the Vatican do? Don't apologize, but blame it on secularism. So basically we are here in Europe also sick of religion. Sure we have less evangelical Christians than you do in the USA, but even that small minority have found ways to ruin the lives of others.  Living in a secular country doesn't mean that there isn't any religion, nor that there are no religious political movements that try to weaken secularism. We still have to keep an eye on religion, to ensure that things don't go from bad to worse. That is the reason why I'm here on this forum.

[karadan]

You aren't being ignorant Tanker

The second reason was because of a girl. To cut a long story short, jesus is a cock-blocker. It pissed me off because I'm not used to dealing with people who base their life on religion or in her case, her mother's force-fed religious rule book. Because the non-belief in a deity has been such a non-issue for most of my life, I've have had very little experience in debating about religious belief. Reconciling the mutual affection we both shared with her mothers brand of insanity was basically impossible. There was no way she would let her daughter date an atheist. So, a fictional character and over-zealous mother had got in the way of my happiness. It was very difficult for me to stomach so I found this forum and vented.

[Tanker]

Thanks for the great responses so far. I really apreciate you all taking the time to answer. I know the evangelical presence isn't quite so strong there, I guess I'm wondering what it is like.

Of course I'm ignorant or I wouldn't have the questions. We are all ignorant of great many things I'm just trying to fill is the gaps. Ignorance isn't a bad thing unless you choose to willingly remain ignorant.

[Tank]

The first forum I got involved with photoSig but that was just about photos and doesn't really count. I left there when it started to get cliques and hyper competitive.

I joined RDF to actually get to talk to theists! I'd read The God Delusion and realised I hardly knew any theists of any type in real life. I wanted to get to talk to some and find out why the believed what they believed. I did have some interesting discussions to begin with. What I really had no idea about were the fundamentalist Christians and Muslims that existed. I hadn't got a clue that some theists could be so extreme in their attitudes, truly delusional, it was a real eye opener.

However over a period of about a year the flavour of the forum changed, the atheists got much better at refuting the claims of the theists that went there and frankly started getting considerably more aggressive and argumentative. The term 'chew toy' was coined that meant a new theist had arrived to get one's teeth into. This lead to a change in the nature of the theists that joined/stayed. They became more and more extreme in their views and the place became a bear pit of argument. Running in parallel to this the forum was developing a serious social side as well with real life relationships forming (friendships and more), presumably with the common world view of the members. So I found a good few friends that I keep in touch with on the forums and in RL.

During and after RDF I have joined other atheistically inclined forums as forums arrived and imploded. I also joined TheologyWeb just to get to talk to theists. It was quite a depressing experience, not because the users were rude or aggressive, but because of the never ending futile justification of world views. The infighting between various theistic factions was almost upsetting to watch as people argued which version of hell the other would go to  

So I found this place, shoved my nose around the door and joined in. One of the reasons I like it is the presence of members like joeactor. He joined here a couple of months after this place started, he stayed and is a mod. This says a lot about this place, it demonstrates it can keep theist members and it practices what it preaches in the sense that there is at least one mod who is a theist, which speaks well of Whitney's ethos.

This may well be the place that I had hoped RDF would be, a place to have reasonable friendly discussions with other reasonable and friendly people, theist and atheist alike.

[Asmodean]

Pretty much what Tom said... 'Sides, faith annoys me and online is a nice place to rant about it

[Cecilie]

Good question!
Well... In Norway, (or at least where I live) people don't discuss those things. I think they just don't care. The people I know are not the least interested in discussing the big issues all together (including religion). And one day I decided I wanted to talk to people with the same religious views as mine (of course I like listening to other people's opinions as well, but that was my main thought of joining).
So, the main point: I hate keeping my opinions inside, 'cause I have so many!

[Asmodean]

Good question!
Well... In Norway, (or at least where I live) people don't discuss those things. I think they just don't care. The people I know are not the least interested in discussing the big issues all together

Indeed they don't. We have precious few conscious atheists in Norway because most people, even though baptized and church-going on Xmas and weddings, don't really consider the skygod a part of their lives. We are kind of... Living in The Here and Now and not caring about The What If, at least most of us are like that... Probably because most of us have pretty damned good lives compared to many others (Not that that hinders us from bitching about luxory problems ) That's my experience.

[Dretlin]

My question, like so many, is born of ignorance. Why do you seek out atheists online? I know for my part and many other American atheists I like talkng with like minded individuals. Which I suppose is why we all come. However religious presence in the U.S is far more oppresive then it is Europe. Finding like minded indivduals can be difficult for many here. Even living in Oregon one of the most liberal states with one of the highest atheist demographics I have often felt alienated and have even been threatened for my beliefs (or lack thereof).

While I don't doubt that many of our European members have had problems for beng an athiest I have a hard time believing most of them have had the...issues that many Americans do. Or even have too much trouble finding like minded individuals near by. So why seek an atheist community online?

I would like to state again that I'm just ignorant and am not attacking anyone. I'm glad to know the various Europeans here I'm also glad to have your pespective on so many issues. Thank you for your consideration.

Good question!

It is true - well, I speak for Scotland - no one could really care less that I am an Atheist. In fact, I very rarely ever meet anyone, from my generation, that is religious.

The response I often receive is - "I am not religious". Yet, that is all I get. I rarely find people with the energy/interest to discuss it. Hence my desire to find like minded individuals whom I can discuss this with.

It is more no one takes interest in it, rather than say your case (I am assuming) that it is taboo.

[Fennia]

I came here to find like minded, intelligent people :hail: