Young atheists, mostly teens, are becoming somewhat exiled, and harshly judged by their peers, who do not agree with their beliefs. I am one of the teens, and their are a few more classmates i see these judgments being placed upon. My class constantly gets into, debates and arguments on whether or not evolution and the scientific version of earths creation, is true compared to the Christian version in which God made the earth and heavens as we know them today. I along with my other classmates who agree with me (which i might add, there are a total of 4, of us), fight back against the many Christians, who declare and insist that they are right and we are wrong. Which at that point, makes me laugh because in biology we watched the 4 episodes of Cosmos, a 4 episode television series, and in one of the episodes, it explains the facts of evolution, and how evolution made earth and the living creatures on it. But even with the scientific proof, right in front of their eyes they denied it completely. I must admit, their faith is strong and i respect them for that, and i respect their beliefs, but I nor do my fellow classmate atheists judge them badly because of their choices and beliefs... so why i ask, do they judge us in this way for ours?
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In the US secular student alliances have been formed. If your nation doesn't present a safe environment to do so then we can talk further sirdeath. http://www.secularstudents.org
Sirdeath, theists often judge atheists, and sometimes harshly, because they perceive a threat from our very existence. That we exist, creates in them, doubt in their cherished beliefs.
BTW, you do not have to respect anyone's faith and beliefs. You can respect someone's right to hold a belief without respecting the belief itself. For instance, flat-earthers have the right to believe the earth is flat, and I have no obligation to respect that notion.
Could you please elaborate further and clearly what's the great disparity between respecting anyone's faith and beliefs, and the right to hold that particular belief? Obviously, I could both respect and hold anyone's faith and belief upon which in any sense, it can be inseparable. For example (based on your paradigm), I have an obligation to respect the notion that the earth is flat, and because I respect it -- I already hold that notion. What do you think? Thanks :)
I think you misunderstood what original post was trying to say. It states that EVERYONE has a RIGHT to form an opinion/belief but that doesn't mean that the rest of the people have to respect that belief. In short, respect is earned, not granted. Unfortunately, a lot of people (quite a few theists) have a sense of entitlement. See, they do have right to believe in something, but I also have the right to call it bullshit. I have no obligations whatsoever to grant them any respect for their belief. Case closed.
I support (respect) a person's right to hold any opinion they want. No one should be forced to agree with anyone else about anything. 'Forced' is the operative word there. No, you absolutely do not have an obligation to respect the notion that the earth is flat. That's the opposite of what I said. I am in no way, shape, or form under any obligation to think anyone's opinion is worth a crap.
This is exactly why I fight for my freedom *from* religion. That there are people in the U.S. who work to legislate having their particular religious version of creationism, for which there is no scientific proof, taught in public schools is to use force on the young. If they want to believe it, fine. If they want to shout it from a mountain top, fine. Just don't force my child to have it jammed down their throats on my tax dime.
They can hold whatever ideas they want, and I can think its bupkus.
I have to ask Sirdeath, where are you going to school? I'm unfortunately limited in my scope of what kids go through. I was raised without formal religion for the most part, and even though I attended Catholic school, it was pretty clear that most of the students felt no real feelings one way or the other about it, other than that catholic schools were the best schools for the money (I had Jewish classmates for chrissakes, lol). It was my impression that most of religion was carried on primarily for lip service, or old people. The religious of my family are so entrenched in a Santeria interpretation of Catholicism that it's clear to the younger generations that religion is to be picked up and discarded like any other pop culture fad - the world kills old gods and makes new ones with ease, considering the duration of humanity. It's more a political mechanism than anything else.
Of course, that's in the Northeast US. Nothing you'd see on Cosmos surprises us, as most of the workers here are at the firms that innovate the technologies that Cosmos tries to sum up in a cursory hour. I've never even watched Cosmos actually, but everything people have told me from it so far is all stuff I've heard before.
A trip down to the American South showed me that that's not true everywhere, even in America. Scary stuff, so much of the world sticking their heads in the sand like that - they leave themselves open for terrible manipulation by not developing their ability to think for themselves.
I'm kinda sure soccergu is no longer in the forum.
He probably got detention or something. He's 15 after all :)
Maybe he earned his badge for this and can now go on to earning the one for door-to-door proselytizing, or the one for prayer for the sick, or the one for handing out bibles to people who are hungry.