Theist Commentary: How to tell your family you are an atheist.

[iSok]

never thought it would be that hard for you people.

Eventually we all have our way of life.
But let's not forget, that we always should strive for knowledge, and we should always be open-minded.



For life is school.

[Matt]

Why is it that you did not think it would be difficult?

[McQ]

I closed the report on this, but have no idea what is going on.

[Velma]

never thought it would be that hard for you people.

Eventually we all have our way of life.
But let's not forget, that we always should strive for knowledge, and we should always be open-minded.



For life is school.

I've been shunned, had my tires slashed, and my cats killed because I am an atheist.  People have been bullied, lost their jobs, lost relationships with friends and family, have had their lives threatened, and have even been killed because of their atheism - and that's here in the US.  We have good reason to worry about how we will be received when we tell others about our atheism.

[iSok]

ehhhh......what just happened?
never mind............

[Tank]

ehhhh......what just happened?
never mind............

I asked that your post on the 'How to tell your family you are an atheist thread' be moved to its own thread as it was very likely to cause a derail there.

[Ultima22689]

My mother knows and possibly my dad, they won't care about it too much, even with their shortcomings they're good parents but I fear the rest of my family would disown me in a heartbeat if I came out the closet that i'm gay for science and not jesus.

[Tank]

never thought it would be that hard for you people.

Well you should read Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali it give a very good insight from the Muslim perspective. I found it very interesting read.

Eventually we all have our way of life.

Not if it is cut short by a religious fundamentalist flying an aircraft into a building, or bombing a night-club, or bombing a bus, or bombing a train etc et al.

But let's not forget, that we always should strive for knowledge, and we should always be open-minded.

Being open-minded means listening to other people's ideas. Being sensible, sceptical and rational is what allows one to choose which idea to agree with and those to discard as mumbo-jumbo mythology. If you already know the answer, and I think you do think you know the answer, then you are the most closed minded you could possibly be. So take some of your own advice and open your mind to the possibility that you could be wrong. I accept that there could be a deity as I can't prove there isn't one. But that does not mean I am in any way convinced there is a deity as nobody as yet come within giving me coherent and demonstrable evidence for the existance of the supernatural realm, and until they do I will continue not to believe in something for which there is no evidence.

For life is school.

And some pupils are just so stupid they may as well not attend because they just are not smart enough to learn. These would be the utterly closed minded theist who 'Believe' and have 'Faith' that they already know what is going on. So life very much is a place of learning, some just have difficulty coping with the fact it may have something to teach them that they don't want to know.

[iSok]

Well you should read Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali it give a very good insight from the Muslim perspective. I found it very interesting read.

Well, so you read Ayaan Hirshi Ali. My respects to her, she really knows how to manipulate.
When she came here from Somalia, she lied at the immigration office, somehow she was still accepted in the Netherlands.
Then she joined the PvdA (political party, with other words 'the labours party').
After that she joined the VVD (political party, 'the liberals'), (imagine how that goes...you go from white to black)
So she started writing books, in the end she is now seen as an intellectual. After she messed up the scene
in the Netherlands and didn't have the courage to stay, she fled to the U.S.A. You gotta love it

Not if it is cut short by a religious fundamentalist flying an aircraft into a building, or bombing a night-club, or bombing a bus, or bombing a train etc et al.

I'm really getting tired of this argument, it just shows that you're actually the one following 'mumb-jumbo' claims.
Let me sum it up my dear friend.

What secularism did in the last century.

-World war 1 (20 milion)
-World war 2 (Hitler was not a christian. he actually called christianity a disease) (55 mllion)
-Stalin (Nice way how he indoctrinated  children, who in the end betrayed their parents, and their parents ending up in Sibera) (60 milion)
-Mao Zedong (You gotta love this man, had pretty nice ways to eradicate people), (If there's no God, why not worship him instead?!) (200 milion, 1/5 of a bilion)
 Look at his argument with 'The great leap forward'  'When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.'
-Vietnam war (3 milion)
-Occupation of Afghanistan by the Sovjet Union. (1,3 milion)
-The massacre in Cambodja (Where a fanatic massacred every intellectual, actually everyone living in urban area's, do watch the movie 'Killing fields') (2,5 milion)
-Iraq war part 1 (85000)
-Iraq part 2 (not for oil of course, but for al qaeda), doesn't matter that saddam was against al qaeda, and al qaeda came after saddam's defeat.
(1,1 milion so far ), it doesn't matter that this war led to 100 times more casualties than saddam ever did)

I only mentioned the wars you probably heard off. Now tell me, did any religion claim so many victims?
The 'mastermind's'  of the wars above, were not so 'religious' at all as you can see. (They did worship themselves and asked others to do the same, does that make them religious?)

I've seen hell on earth and I know what human ideology can do,  5 members of my family were shot dead as amusement by USSR soldiers in the eighties.

Being open-minded means listening to other people's ideas. Being sensible, sceptical and rational is what allows one to choose which idea to agree with and those to discard as mumbo-jumbo mythology. If you already know the answer, and I think you do think you know the answer, then you are the most closed minded you could possibly be. So take some of your own advice and open your mind to the possibility that you could be wrong. I accept that there could be a deity as I can't prove there isn't one. But that does not mean I am in any way convinced there is a deity as nobody as yet come within giving me coherent and demonstrable evidence for the existance of the supernatural realm, and until they do I will continue not to believe in something for which there is no evidence.

The only religious book you ever read is the Bible (did you?). Now you claim that you're an atheist.
Never did you go out and read any other religious book to find out why people are attracted to them, in your eyes it's already 'mumbo jumbo'.
Talk about being narrow minded, I did however come to an atheist forum, trying to understand people, something you'd never do.

The bold part really made me laugh. So you consider yourself as the center and other people have to come to convince you, because you consider
yourself 'oh so important'. Break this illusion please, go out and read something.

And some pupils are just so stupid they may as well not attend because they just are not smart enough to learn. These would be the utterly closed minded theist who 'Believe' and have 'Faith' that they already know what is going on. So life very much is a place of learning, some just have difficulty coping with the fact it may have something to teach them that they don't want to know.

So you find yourself so smart, that you think that dumb people only follow religions, or claim that there is a God?
Well the greatest thinkers of history believed in a 'Deity', yes..even Plato.
Isaac Newton, the father of physics was a devoted christian.
Aren't you doing the same as you claim believers do?
One of the arguments against religion is 'you just waste time'.

As a matter of fact, if you think you'll only live this life.
Then stop having debates about religion, because it's a waste of time. Your clock is ticking.
Sometimes I think you need people like Dawkins, Hitchens or Harris so you can be right and you can feel better whenever the thought comes 'what if I'm wrong?'.


I think I said enough, I came to this forum to meet some open-minded people.
But all I see are the same false arguments.

He is the One who made mankind,
He is the One who sustains mankind,
He is the One who awaits mankind,

Yet He is denied by the majority of mankind.
He deserves much better from us.

The root of all evil is not religion, but it is ignorance and pride.
What I've seen with my own eyes so many times.


Peace be upon you all,

[LegendarySandwich]

What secularism did in the last century.

-World war 1 (20 milion)
-World war 2 (Hitler was not a christian. he actually called christianity a disease) (55 mllion)
-Stalin (Nice way how he indoctrinated  children, who in the end betrayed their parents, and their parents ending up in Sibera) (60 milion)
-Mao Zedong (You gotta love this man, had pretty nice ways to eradicate people), (If there's no God, why not worship him instead?!) (200 milion, 1/5 of a bilion)
 Look at his argument with 'The great leap forward'  'When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.'
-Vietnam war (3 milion)
-Occupation of Afghanistan by the Sovjet Union. (1,3 milion)
-The massacre in Cambodja (Where a fanatic massacred every intellectual, actually everyone living in urban area's, do watch the movie 'Killing fields') (2,5 milion)
-Iraq war part 1 (85000)
-Iraq part 2 (not for oil of course, but for al qaeda), doesn't matter that saddam was against al qaeda, and al qaeda came after saddam's defeat.
(1,1 milion so far ), it doesn't matter that this war led to 100 times more casualties than saddam ever did)

I only mentioned the wars you probably heard off. Now tell me, did any religion claim so many victims?

You fail to take into account how the progression of technology has made killing people oh so much easier.

The 'mastermind's'  of the wars above, were not so 'religious' at all as you can see. (They did worship themselves and asked others to do the same, does that make them religious?)

Pretty much, yes. In the absence of religion, similar ideologies tend to crop up. By the way, even if Hitler wasn't a Christian (no one knows for sure), he sure as hell wasn't an atheist.

I've seen hell on earth and I know what human ideology can do,

Like Islam?

5 members of my family were shot dead as amusement by USSR soldiers in the eighties.

I agree that religions aren't the only horrible ideologies there are. I'm against ideology in general.

The only religious book you ever read is the Bible (did you?). Now you claim that you're an atheist.
Never did you go out and read any other religious book to find out why people are attracted to them, in your eyes it's already 'mumbo jumbo'.
Talk about being narrow minded, I did however come to an atheist forum, trying to understand people, something you'd never do.

The bold part really made me laugh. So you consider yourself as the center and other people have to come to convince you, because you consider
yourself 'oh so important'. Break this illusion please, go out and read something.

Until you have read every holy book that has ever existed, I'm going to deem you a hypocrite.

So you find yourself so smart, that you think that dumb people only follow religions, or claim that there is a God?

Who here said that?

Well the greatest thinkers of history believed in a 'Deity', yes..even Plato.

So?

Isaac Newton, the father of physics was a devoted christian.

He was also an alchemist.

Aren't you doing the same as you claim believers do?

No.

One of the arguments against religion is 'you just waste time'.


As a matter of fact, if you think you'll only live this life.
Then stop having debates about religion, because it's a waste of time. Your clock is ticking.

What is considered a waste of time to one man is another man's favorite passtime. It's all subjective.

Sometimes I think you need people like Dawkins, Hitchens or Harris so you can be right and you can feel better whenever the thought comes 'what if I'm wrong?'.

Sometimes I think you need books like the Qur'an so you can be right and feel better whenever the thought comes 'what if I'm wrong?'.

See what I did there?

I think I said enough, I came to this forum to meet some open-minded people.
But all I see are the same false arguments.

Same for you, my friend.

The root of all evil is not religion, but it is ignorance and pride.
What I've seen with my own eyes so many times.

Too bad that religion is ignorant and prideful.

Peace be upon you all,

Ah, ending a "You're all dumb nonbelievers" post with "Peace be upon you" or "God Bless" or something similar. Good job.

[LegendarySandwich]

He is the One who made mankind,
He is the One who sustains mankind,
He is the One who awaits mankind,

Yet He is denied by the majority of mankind.
He deserves much better from us.

No, he doesn't.

[Tom62]

Well, so you read Ayaan Hirsi Ali. My respects to her, she really knows how to manipulate.
When she came here from Somalia, she lied at the immigration office, somehow she was still accepted in the Netherlands.
Then she joined the PvdA (political party, with other words 'the labours party').
After that she joined the VVD (political party, 'the liberals'), (imagine how that goes...you go from white to black)
So she started writing books, in the end she is now seen as an intellectual. After she messed up the scene
in the Netherlands and didn't have the courage to stay, she fled to the U.S.A. You gotta love it

I fully agree with you on this one, ISok. The only comment, that I've got to make is that only after the arrival of Geert Wilders and Jan Rutte, the VVD moved more to the right. At the time of Hirsi Ali joining the PvdA, both parties were more or less located in the center of the political field. So she didn't really move from white to black.

[Asmodean]

never thought it would be that hard for you people.

It can be hard.

It can be very hard indeed because there are kids who risk being kicked out of the house for being atheists. There are families that can be ruined forever if one central member comes out as atheist. There is a risk of getting killed for forsaking your beloved prophet in several Islamic countries. There is a good chance many people you thought of as friends might turn their backs on you. There is bigotry and discrimination and archaic, xenophobic do-or-die reaction patterns to many atheists in many parts of the world. There is needless pity and unwelcome attempts to "save the poor soul". There are dozens of other reasons which mainly boil down to the possibility of a breakdown of one's entire social structure.

That is why coming out as atheist can be hard for far too many.

[Tank]

[iSok]

I liked her book. The fact that she explains her dishonesty in arriving and admits to it actually enhances her character in my view. We all make mistakes it takes guts to face up to them as she did.

She couldn't keep denying, could she?

I'm not your friend.

You missed the irony..

You claim you are a Muslim. Islam crosses racial and national boundaries. I see Pakistanis killing their own politician because he dared to support the repeal of a blasphemy law. I see Muslims killing Christians and Muslims alike but I don't see any massed protests by Muslims calling for an end to such behaviour.

Maybe you should look further..Muslims as human shield http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2011/01/egyptian_muslims_act_as_human_shields_for_coptic_christmas_mass.html
There are many more examples..
Too bad the western media doesn't pay attention to things like these. It's all about Islam violence these days. And you're a typical prejudiced example of it. Thank you for revealing your frustrated view of Islam.

And what about this? http://jamesrupert.wordpress.com/wars/afghanistan-2/afghan-saved-a-gi-now-pays-the-price/
U.S.A. soldier saved by an Afghan shepherd, but pays the price, he has probably been killed by now.

Born out of centuries of Pashtun tribal wars and clan feuds, pashtunwali demands of a man both unflinching violence when his honor is thought to have been stained, and selfless humanitarianism when anyone â€" stranger or enemy â€" requests protection from a foe.
“He came to me for help. If I did not help a guest, it would have been a great shame for me,” Gulab said â€" a shame that might have led to his expulsion from his community.

My 'friend' I was on a holiday in Afghanistan in 2007 to see my family. Well if you've seen what I saw there, you'd never say this.
The way U.S.A. marines behave there, lets say they don't mind killing for fun. Even if I'm 21, I've seen and experienced more in life than you ever have.
Even I was almost shot because I didn't stop when they came in the opposite direction.

I don't see massed demands by Muslims for the capture and execution of Osama Bin Laden. I see terrorist cowards who kill un-armed civilians who are no threat to them. I see Muslim terrorist walking into schools in Beslan and kill 300 people in the name of Allah. Islam's hands run with blood and death but I don't see any Muslims protesting these facts. Have you called for the capture and trial of OBL?

Rotten apples are everywhere, but do you now apply this to every Muslim? Because then truly you are narrow minded.
Look at the examples I gave you, it just shows how controlled your world view is.
Looking through the 'islam=violence' spectacles. I piety you, really I do.
The U.S.A. found Saddam after 3-4 years somewhere in a hole in in the middle of Iraq, but they can't find OBL? Wake up 'friend'.
Yes OBL is an idiot, a mass murderer, someone who should be put in jail.

But you asked me this, and let me ask you this.
This forum is religion, somehow you diverted it into politics.
What reason did Bush have to infiltrate Iraq?

WOMD were not found, Al qaeda grew stronger, far more casualties, total poverty.
Please, give me ONE GOOD reason.

You're 21? So this happened before you were born right? Are you seeking vengeance in the name of peaceful religion? I am sorry some of your family were killed but their deaths had nothing to do with me, nor the world view that I hold. So I fail to see your point. If you are attempting to make me feel culpable for you families deaths then you have failed. You however do support Islam and therefore are at least vicariously responsible for the behaviour of your fellow Muslims. Do you deny that Osamma is a Muslim or that the child murderers in Beslan were Muslims and killed with the name of Allah on their lips?

yes this happened before I was born. Why am I seeking vengeance in the name of a religion? What are you talking about..? And when did I support their views?
I think you should really check yourself, quote me where I said this.
As for vengeance, you already feel threatned by a 'cyber-muslim'? Don't worry, there's no 'cyber suicide bomber'.

You do not understand an atheistic, humanist or secular world view.

Now I do, very well in fact.

I don't have to read all the worlds books on religion to understand they are based on a falsehood. Our ancestors were superstitious, as are most primitive societies today. Most superstitions are animist in nature attributing cause and effect to unseen and unknown spirits. You will find that all religions are simply institutionalised superstitions created by bright men to exploit others and gain power. Mohamed was apparently a clever politician who realised he needed to unit the Arab tribes if he wanted real power.

I don't have to speak this, you just showed it yourself how narrow-minded you are.
About the bold part, for Dawkin's sake do read history. A comment like that is ridiculous, you have no clue what you are talking about.
It shows how naive and ignorant you are.

My Mum was Christian and it didn't take me long to work out she was talking rubbish when she spoke of Jesus etc.  

I hope your mother wasn't speaking as much rubbish as you do.

Actually my wife has a lot of books on religion as one of her degrees contained an element of comparative religion. I read enough of those to see that delusional religious behaviour is pretty much endemic in humanity. I assume you have read all books about all religions before selecting Islam? If not then you are a hypocrite for expecting others to do what you have not.

You are talking about knowledge? You don't even know the basics, stop lying.

Well recently finished reading Nation by Terry Pratchett an excellent author of fiction. It's the story of a boy's journey to manhood and throwing off the comfort blanket of superstition. You might find it quite insightful if you read it with your wonderfully open mind. Today I finished The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow, it deals with the origin of the universe and it's 'apparent' design and quite convincingly demonstrates that Allah is not required to explain either the origin of the universe nor our existance in it. If you want to find out the details read it with your wonderfully open-mind. I have just started reading 'First Life' by David Attenborough, it looks very interesting.

Good books you read, but you read only books who scream 'THERE IS NO GOD'.
I am narrow-minded?

'Faith' that they already know what is going on. So life very much is a place of learning, some just have difficulty coping with the fact it may have something to teach them that they don't want to know.

Yet, you have never read another religious book except the Bible, are you so afraid that your worldview might get shattered?
Yes I agree that life is a place of learning.
And I believe this phase of learning will be with you for eternity, you believe it'll end with death.

I am smart, it's not a sin you know. I'm smart enough to spot bullshit miles away. It's a fact that atheists tend to be smarter than, that's not to say that there are not smart theists there are. But once you get over an IQ of 125 more people are atheists than theists.

MOST people, not everyone.
For an intellectual you need to view religion in depth. That's what I believe.
Also, you might find this shocking but smart people view themselves as superior, they don't need anyone.
I'm an uni student, I see very well how students around me approach the janitor. This is of course not applicable to everyone.
But if you open your eyes, some people are really delighted with their 'IQ'.
You're an classic example, mentioning your IQ..

I have three kids, all older than you (if you're 21) and a recently arrived grandchild. All are atheists with atheist partners. Now I spend my time here because I enjoy the company and also the opportunity to debate with theists and when I have a mind to show up their world view for the institutionalised superstition that it is. I come here in part to give people the opportunity to realise that an atheistic world view is perfectly reasonable and acceptable and that Islam is nothing but an old politically expedient world view that has nothing to offer but ignorance and oppression.

You should thank Islam for the world you're living in now. Look up at the Islamic golden age, you might be surprised.
And one hint...the Islamic system actually provides a good basic for economy. With the Islamic model, there would't have been a economic crisis.
But that just happened of a few people who were too greedy....and wanted to live in the best way possible.

Dawkins is a passable scientist but is utterly clueless when it comes to why people believe in superstitions. Hitchins is still arguing with his brother Peter and Sam Harris talks a lot of sense, but in a rather impersonal way. I was an atheist way before I had heard or read anything about these people.  

Might not count for you, it does for others.

So you have been looking in the mirror have you? You have brought nothing new here, not even an open-mind.

I think you should look in the mirror.

I've highlighted the part of the poem that you need to pay attention to in case you missed it while you typed it.

I think that part really is for you.

One of the reasons I have become more atheistic over time is coming across people like you iSor. Please keep up the good work in demonstrating just how dangerous 'Belief', 'Faith' and in particular Islam is.

Do read my posts well.