As a Christian, when you'r been introduced as a christian, you're happy because been a Christian Portrays to the individiual are been introduced to as a good person. Do you feel great like this as well when people call you hatist....sorry, I mean to say atheist :-) just that it sounds like hate. ( just poking...you guys here are great and I'm liking the atmosphere. Free speech and health atmosphere).
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Why do you assume the Christian label portrays one as a good person. The majority of the world's population would disagree with you, as the most populous religion in Islam and do not regard Christians in a favorable light. There is also a problem of non-exclusivity. Anyone may say s/he is a Christian regardless of the validity of the statement. There is no test, to determine if a person is a Christian.
Atheism is not something to be proud of, if someone were to introduce me as an atheist, I would not feel ashamed, nor "happy." Atheist is not a definition of me. I am proud of being skeptical, but I am no more proud of being an atheist than of not believing in pink unicorns.
you can tell who is a good person by the way they act. Saying christians are good people is to generalize, the same as to say all atheists are evil, that is just a tag. I prefer to be introduce by my name. btw great answer D'amanar,
Go look for the thousands of perverted christian priests that abuse altar boys all over the world. And if you are a christian you would not want to be mixed up with such people or seen as if you are all the same as they are. It goes for all beliefs and labels too. Not all atheists are good or bad, just as it happens will all other religions.
I will tell you this much though, i have found a lot more interesting ideas coming from people who question religion. Although some christians and catholics are very smart people that also have good advice from time to time.
For many centuries the word "atheist" has been branded as bad and evil by theists, especially Christians. This goes to branding Christians as a good person. If you studied early Christianity as well as the Middle Ages, Christians were everything but good.
I understand what you mean about the term Atheist having negative associations tied with it according to the theist perspective. Personally I am not a very "vocal" Atheist who goes around voluntarily telling everyone my stance; however, there are moments that arise when someone asks me about my beliefs or makes an uncalled statement about Atheism that I do feel the urge to speak. I feel proud to share my stance, not so much as to claim that I am right but more so to let it be known that I am competent, moral, trustworthy, friendly, and wow, I don't believe in God! Imagine that!
I'm not an atheist but I also don't have a religion. I believe about the supreme energy but I doesn't matter for me if some people would call me an atheist. It sounds good to me than to be called as a christian. Most christians don't really portray the goodness of Jesus but some wanted the label to make others believe that they are good people.
Most of the biggest jerks I know call themselves Christians. When people present it to me as their defining characteristic, or others present that too me, it says something about the situation... and not always something good. I prefer people who come with better titles than Christian, such as Respectful person, Generous person, Honest person, etc.
I've never had anyone introduce me as an atheist. My beliefs are not a virtue, no one's are.
I wouldn't mind being called an atheist. I do not believe it to be a derisive name. I do not believe in God/Gods. I am an atheist. I just don't like being targeted for my lack of superstitious belief.
1st of all when someone introduces them self as a christian to me, what comes to mind is a hater, a racist, and a gullible moron. I don't see a good person at all. I see a person that is blind to reality and will try and force that bullshit on others, and people don't accept that bullshit, they will do drastic things to them. Christian doesn't mean good. It means a lot of things, but good isn't one of them.
I don't like the word "atheist" because it is a negative label that christians made up when they made up their god. I am a normal human being. Christians are the ones that deserve a label. One should assume that a person is just a plain everyday ordinary person until they present them self as a christian. Atheist are the normal ones and christians are the ones that are strange, and abnormal.
The number one demographic of all convicted criminals is christian, so to be introduced as a christian should cast a dark shadow on anyone that calls them self that. They are the highest potential to be a criminal.
Atheist.
No one understands and appreciates the word fully. For anyone to use it as a name-calling derisive response would be counter to their intent, and certainly a display of ignorance. I've never been called an atheist, by people who are aware of my stance on deities, because I know they are unfamiliar with the word much less its definition. But, they don't need to know it because it satisfies nothing for them outside of simple curiosity and I never give them reason to defend their beliefs.
I think atheists take themselves way too seriously. Moreover, I think they inflict upon themselves certain imagined embellishments of the reactions apologists might have about them. Or, maybe they want to elicit that kind of reaction. I know some people who are quite vocal about it. They don't have a lot of friends.
Atheism is a very powerful wave of negative energy for an apologist to grapple with. It confirms to him that people just like him reject the idea of a god or gods, and those people should be shunned. That is frightening to him on many levels, doubt being the highest of that order, because the human condition is to doubt that which his senses cannot affirm. He must redouble his efforts to abate those doubts by keeping close ties to his herd of apologists and by certainly avoiding exposure of his inward weaknesses to a non-believer by inciting that negative energy.
One of the things a normal apologist will not do is awaken his doubts through voluntary discussion with an atheist. He doesn't desire to engage in that kind of challenging debate. Furthermore, he certainly won't take a militant defensive stance whether it be pro or antagonistic in nature. He doesn't need to defend his faith, because it needs no proof of evidence simply by virtue of it being a faith. Atheists take the stance that a belief in a deity requires proof. The argument is not only silly, it's irrational because all are in agreement that only in faith lies the existence of a god. Yes, it is understood that apologists tend to promote it as fact but even they agree that approach conflicts with the grounding in faith.
Atheists may as well stand tall and smack each other in the faces with dead fish for all the convincing their arguments have with apologists. Best to remain quiet and get on with the job of living rather than confound it by adding trouble.
Take a simple definition of atheism "disbelief in a god(s)", then religionists are "atheist" about all other gods but their own.
Religionists call me atheist, I avoid religious terms. Without religious superstition there is no atheist, agnostic or secular. Just people.
Never been introduced to anyone as a hateist or an atheist. Has not come up during an introduction. I have been told this about others "He/She is a good Christian!". Really ? I wonder whether that is pompous or inane.
I had a very interesting conversation with a long-time friend of mine. I was the best man at one of his weddings, and we consider ourselves better brothers than our respective biological brothers. We had an interesting speedbump come up a day or so ago. I haven't been particularly open about being an atheist to my old acquaintances, and the conversation never came up before between me and my friend. He'd posted some image that tried to reinforce that old trope that the Old Testament's insanity wasn't still relevant because of Jesus. I pointed him to the book of Matthew and the 'jot and tittle' line, whereupon he asked what denomination I was because he was interested in joining it, considering how well I seemed to understand the Bible. I was a bit surprised. He'd always struck me as a spiritual person, but never a Christian specifically. He'd bought into all kinds of wooey fads in his younger years, but I never thought that any of it stuck.
After a few other (more personal) questions, he started to take some of the hints I was giving out when I mentioned how Jesus murdered an innocent fig tree among other things that he had no clue were in the Bible. "You're not an...atheist, are you?" It was as if he was asking me if I was a serial rapist two seconds away from giving him a tour of my dungeon. I honestly think that, had I not had the decades-long friendship with him, he might have severed ties with me then and there. He'd been programmed to believe that the term 'Atheist' was among the most horrific titles one could put upon themselves. What's worse is that he didn't actually know what it meant to be an atheist, just that it was really...really...bad.
Something that I've learned as a user of the English language is that definitions can change over time, even if the word itself is no different. Pardon if this may offend people, but consider the words 'gay' and 'fag'. These two did not originally have negative correlations. One was rather positive, and people would gladly buy the other by the carton. It wasn't until common reinterpretation altered the meaning of the word that they took on their modern connotations. Atheist is in a similar vein. Strictly speaking, an atheist is simply a person who rejects the god hypothesis. In the majority Christian areas of the US, however, it means an immoral person, a sort of societal contrarian.
Tzeentch - "Something that I've learned as a user of the English language is that definitions can change over time"
Oh yeah, for sure. When I was younger, the term 'mental retardation' was the technical term for what is now called 'intellectual disability'. It appears as recently as the DSM-IV (1994). But what can you do, language changes, just got to try to keep up I guess.