I wonder what they think of countries around the world, like Australia, where "non-relgious" is on the way to being the highest self-reported group (38.9%) beat out by Christianity (43.9%), in 2021.
You're not considered "weird" by having any religious belief, but you may find it hard to make friends outside your religion if you're deeply religious.
There's honestly some stigma against it. Which is well deserved.
I remember two adults acting as aegis for their child. The kid approached my door, handed me a flyer and asked me to come to his Jesus party. The parents were smiling hopefully. I have no idea what Jesus party even meant.
I kneeled and said flatly "There's no such thing as Jesus. Your parents and your pastor are lying to you."
They were HORRIFIED, the parents rushed up my stoop, the father literally grabbed the kid under his arm like a football and they fled.
Am I an asshole? No. That child needed to know he's being deceived.
Possibly unpopular opinion by a fellow atheist, but you're just as bad as a preaching Christian by doing that. Trying to turn others to your belief system, however right it may be, is shitty, homie. Way to ruin a kids party, when you admit yourself you didn't even know what they meant by Jesus Party. Made an assumption, ruined a kids week. YTA.
Nah. They knocked on the door and interrupt a stranger's day to sell Jesus. They need to learn to not do that if they're not prepared to deal with the responses.
They will never be able to take from that child, the seed of truth I planted in that moment.
Not trying to over-inflate the incident, but I remember being that young and looking to my elders for guidance. It would have been great if one rebel, at any point in my childhood, just said yeah I don't buy this shit either.
Or they are afraid of the atheist telling the child its all lies and social control. Thus way they encourage the child to self report in case there is even a slight possibility that the child might learn something other than the dogma they spew
It's so fucking culty to prevent kids from getting information that goes against the religious leader's beliefs as well.
"Don't talk to the atheist! They might give you bad ideas that will send you to HELL" Literally preventing the spread of information that goes against their beliefs.
It's called indoctrination. This is ironic as Christian Nationalists are in the vanguard against Transvestite Story Hour and panic over all the gay/transexual/satanic grooming that's going on.
I like how rational sorrows about the state of the world is considered grumpy compared to mindlessly giving away any responsibility by praying.
Raped your wife/daugther? Pray! Got raped by family? Pray!! Pillaged an entire workforce for every dime they had, killing some of them by removing healthcare/firing them? Pray! Having no healthcare on the deathbed? Pray!!!Be an drunk asshole abusing your family? Pray!!!!!
I'm a Christian, the opposite happens as well. Why can't we discuss our beliefs in a civilized manner? I will never tell my "pastor" about an atheist or theist in my area. Especially considering I have atheist friends.
I don't need to discuss your beliefs for the same reason I don't need to discuss the beliefs of the schizophrenic man that stands outside my building, clad in a blanket, shouting at the sky.
I have Christian friends. We all hang out because none of it matters. Sometimes we chat about it for the sake of chatting about it, but generally it's the last thing on anyone's mind. People who are vocal about their beliefs, one way or another, are annoying.
I lost a great life long friend 4 years ago and we gamed together. Sometimes when religion came up in a game we discussed it. Disagreed about it. Picked the controllers back up and played some more.
That will only work if the atheist doesn't have any patients proficiencies, which comes with almost every athiest subclass. This gives the athiest advantage on charisma, intelligence, and wisdom saving throws from a character with the Christian class against the atheist. This is of course negated completely if the christian comes into the battle with the lawyered-up buff, but I didn't splurge on the LegalEagle's Book of Many Laws. So I'm not sure how that mechanic works.
Father, we also have other related news, We have a cease and desist from the Almighty claiming that if we continue to use his name to push our own agenda he is ready to take legal action.
New gospel: All Gods are real and the reason they no longer meddle in the affairs of mortals is because they are too busy fighting their wars in heaven.
That's the old gospel. Even at the time of the apostles polylatry (like idolatry, but different). All the gods are real but this god is your god. Hence all the proscriptions against idolatry and other gods.
And they fought in spirit and by archons. When David slew Goliath (or his chroniclers stole valor from Ethanan), that was a contest between gods, even as modern interpretations of the fight coach it in materialist terms.
The rising denial of gods via monotheism occurred after Caesar became Christian since prior Caesars got into the habit of persecuting those who didn't worship Caesar's god, or eventually Caesar, himself.
Ha! Love the idea of joining a church and then comparing their god to all the other ones. “Who do you think would win in a fight?” And watch the feathers fly
I bet Mr. Gruff (and while I'm at it, Baphomet) has goat powers like being able to digest just about anything, and walk up slight inclined walls and cliffsides.
If you see someone who is grumpy and bitter rather than trying to witness to them (which doesn't work — we all force-fed Jesus the way we force feed geese) try bringing them cookies or inviting them to the community barbecue.
As a former catholic, I still can't wrap my head around a whole day of worship followed by an all-evening "bible study" later in the week. I distinctly recall priests getting to the point, singing a few songs, reading some stuff, knocking out a few weekly rituals, feeding the entire congregation, all in under 45 minutes1. I can't fathom what another 18+ hours of weekly religiosity would even contain.
Hey padre, can we speed this up? There's a game on right now and that parking lot is a nightmare.
This shit is ancient, and it was drawn as satire/bait. Nobody is handing out these flyers seriously. This post is rather embarrassing. Satire is dead I guess.
Edit: sources:
Source for text: scroll for text. I don't know where the goat went. This website is a high-effort satire page that hasn't been updated since like 2010. Looks real at first glance but just click around, it's clearly not a real church.
So I followed your link, found the quoted text, and and had a look around the website. I genuinely cannot tell if this is satire. Most of the links are now dead, but the ones that work seem to lead to serious sources. If it is satire, it is very high effort.
Anyway, I'm going to share with a friend who has more personal experience with this kind of thing and get their perspective.
It's satire, but Poe's Law is STRONG with this one! There are plenty of people who unironically believe more ridiculous things than what's on that site.
So quick update: my friend who was homeschooled in a religious household but is now atheist thinks it is not satire. My take is that if this is satire, it's going over a lot of people's heads.
This link is broken. Hmm.... If this were a real organization that needed money, wouldn't they either shut this site down entirely or fix their shop page?
It tries to serve you .swf (Shockwave Flash) versions unless your browser doesn't support embedding, in which case it'll serve you .gifs instead. I guess that, since modern browsers do support embedding in general but not Flash, that's why they don't display either version.
The only one I don't get is the Hebrew kangaroo. I guess the artist couldn't figure out what fauna was appropriate so they went for a rhyme instead? IMO, there's lots to choose from, but a "rabbi rabbit" would have also been pretty clever.
Edit: as a work of satire, I guess all four are equally and deliberately screwed up, now that I think about it.
Yeah I remember this from back in the day. Indignant atheist teenage me was pretty incensed at first, but the page about plans to build a massive cross-shaped satellite that transmits bible verses was a bit of a giveaway.
After clicking through the site, and seeing a list of church members, I'm really not sure it's satire. If it is, it's keeping a very very straight face.
If I remember correctly this is from a site it gave fursona to other groups they didn't like including Jewish, and Islamic folks. It was an educational site directed to children
ROFL That’s hilarious, I’m only grumpy on the days that fatigue can’t be beat by sleep. Otherwise, I’m pretty happy as my joy doesn’t come from the belief in something that might not exist.
Atheists are always pulling this face like they can’t believe how stupid and credulous the person they’re speaking to is. Every single one I’ve met does this.
The thumb looks cartoonish, the fold under "...but then why are they" is inconsistent and has the bottom of letters too far under it, the words at the bottom of the page look especially borked (look at "are needed"). Pretty certain this is a generated image.