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
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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 counter argument that I hear from other atheists that aren’t anti-religious is that religions makes stupid people more moral than they would be if they didn’t have the looming threat of angering their sky daddy.
I have never heard that argument from an atheist. Only from religious people who claim there's no morality without their god.
The dude who made the McDonald’s documentary had a show putting opposite people together. A Christian lived with a Muslim family. He said that if you don’t get your values from god, he couldn’t imagine where you got them. He couldn’t imagine empathy.
Again empathy doesn't entail morally good actions, any more than a sense of smell entails a popular choice of perfume.
That’s a completely different argument, and one I’ve had with many religious people, but that’s not what I’m referring to.
Empathy and logic require intelligence, yet many people are too stupid to be empathetic or logical, and religion provides them with a much simpler reason to do the right thing when no one is looking.
Can you give an example of how this reasoning is suppose to work? Trying to parse this the only behaviors coming to mind are the 'fire & brimstone' type. The 'I hate those people 'cause the pastor said the book says to'.
"Can you give an example of how this reasoning is supposed to work"
Easily. Fear of punishment is a deterrent^1^.
Technically most non-philosopher atheists seem to ascribe to moral anti-realism, which logically leads to the moral permissibility of all actions. It's actually them engaging in erroneous logic that they adhere to morally good behavior.
Pff no. They just find a way to use the religion to justify what they're doing
Some will, but I’d posit that’s not the dumb people that I’m referring to that are responsible for that. It’s more the smart immoral people that are using religion to manipulate other less intelligent and less logical faithful people into doing evil in the name of religion.
No. It just gives them an excuse. They can be “forgiven”.
This.
“No matter what I do, it’s ok because sky daddy forgives me! I can be as shitty as I want to people and just feel bad and confess later, and everything is ok!”
Ever wonder why religions are incredibly popular among criminals?
This certainly doesn't seem to be a practice among religious individuals any more than non-religious. One still has to factor in that even if "sky-daddy" forgives you, there is still social pressure to "atone" for one's actions. So trying to pin poor behaviour on belief in a "forgiving sky-daddy", requires proving that the social pressures disappear, and good luck with that.
Like “born again” virgins?
Using religion to protect from the social pressure is the whole point
“Only god can judge me!”
And they get away with it far too often, without even a sense of guilt to slow them down
“Moral”
Religion is the opiate of the masses, for certain
The problem is that the “moral” things they induce people to do are many times anything but