Why are Atheists so Scary?

Truth to be found by myself will always include other people.

I have never borrowed any truth I hold.
I own or am owned by my truth.

Truth also is never for sale.
But can easily be a commerce.

Any truth or consensus would be almost impossible to reach were it not for a generalisation of some form.
A Universal or a fundamental truth for instance is a completely formed generalisation.
The most for the most.

Yes I have admonished myself for the 'always', the 'terrifying' is a spicy word to be sure.

I did not intend to burn any ones tongue.

And I assure you the word was not spat.

Thank you for your time

My ex-wife is constantly glued to a ghastly television channel on Sky called the God Channel. She used to have books of literature, politics, philosophy, theology, Black history, etc.; now she only has a few evangelical tracts and inspirational biographies and Christian fantasy stories apparently manufactured to compete with 'Harry Potter' (which read something like scripts for 'He Man and the Masters of the Universe' - that sort of literary level). She has a book about the founding of the God Channel, by Wendy Alec (founded the channel, wrote the book): for some unearthly reason, the cover features what looks like three soldiers saluting in front of a misty image of the Stars and Stripes! What freaked me out even more than that, on visiting recently to spend time with my daughter, was the crushingly hypnotic atmosphere which seemed to hang around the place all the time, even when the television wasn't tuned to the God Channel. I'll spare you the details of the generations of sexual and physical abuse and mental illness in her Pentecostal family, or her belief that natural disasters are caused by sin, or that all homosexuals should be rounded up and kept in concentration camps to save the rest of us from AIDS (whether she thinks that was a plague sent by God, I don't know), or that sex is purely for reproduction and should not be pleasurable, or that our daughter is literally possessed by a demon, and much, much more. Oh, and by the way, I also grew up in Northern Ireland, so all in all, I do not have the most rosy picture of religion.

Is it a false generalisation though?

I agree if I ever do offend (which I would never intend) bring me up on it.

But please all try not to trade offence with offence.

I always assume first if I am offend it is an ignorance.
Unless it is beyond doubt that the intent was to offend.

I am not trying to bait the bear here, I want this unpleasantness away form me,
But needed to say I completely agree, if you ever think I have done something offensive or insensitive call me on it, but please try not to assume it was my first purpose and reason for posting.
Please in future just ask me to explain myself.

Definitely culture, (sun smile)

YES absolutly false.

Old as the stars, young as my foolishness.

I don't really know what background means.
But I try as much as possible to make my history count for nothing until it is present. (sun smile)

Thank you for your understanding words.

The richest corporation in the world is the catholic church.
Dont just assume your donations at church go to help those less fortunate than yourself.
Dad(athiest)Pad.

I do not believe just because someone correct or incorrect that they do not hold truth in their heart.
Your truth is your conviction and how you lead and are led by your life.
Truth is what we live, more than what we believe.
I would not take your life from you,
and would hope you would not take my life from me unless you had a life available I could lead and be led by that would be endurable.



No offence but a couple 'seemed' angry, if not with theism here then definitely with me.
It may have been a personally justified anger, but it was not what I was looking for even though I did ask 'about' it, and it did indeed find me terrified.
As said, anger terrifies me, I mean this, so why it was presumed I was trying to elicit it I don't understand.
But do now fully accept my fault in not being more deft.
I am sorry I hurt anyone,
but I cant really be sorry for an unintentional miswriting and misreading.
Or should I be?

Thank you for your questions I enjoyed answering them.

Generally Atheists have always seemed very strong to me.
And people who are strong who you feel would oppose you would also be something to not feel embarrassed about being afraid of.
You have made me rethink my assumptions and compassions somewhat.
I should not be so automatic in my assumption that they can indeed take care of themselves without a little help from a friend.

Never said they were angrier than non-atheists just that I was more presently concerned with my fear of atheists.

No religious persons anger is even more fearful for me,
but I was asking about my fear of atheists,
mainly because I found I was meeting more of them than usual here and would have preferred to know how to equip and deal with myself around those most immediate.
To be more productive for the likes of yourself.
Fear stifles my productivity and creativity, not you.
You don't seem to have that many 'religious' people here at all.
I am more faithful than religious.

Again I did not mean to elude that you were angry people,
what I meant and badly put was that when conversing with atheist about theistic matters I find them fearful and in my experience have usually used their badge of atheism as a means to alert me to my own insecurities about my devoutness and conviction.
It is not that every atheist I have met puts fear into me at all times, it is that I have nearly always found their arguments against theists to be trying to convict me of something a something that is usually counter to my own convictions.

Thanks for your time and sorry I did not get to the prayer thread properly today, will tomorrow.

I am not an atheist and I believe in evolution.

Thanks

I do not fear their thoughts, that's like fearing someone for their dreams.
I fear their words, language, inflection, indentation and intention.

Thank you for a thoroughly connective post.

See these kinds of statements are what annoy me.

Atheism does not mean you believe or don't believe in evolution. Evolution and atheism are not tied together in any way, what so ever. Sure some atheists follow evolution however not all of them do. If you believe in evolution it doesn't make you an atheist.

I know you didn't intend for it to come out like that, but it bugs me that theists try to use it in this way. It is a fallacy of ignorance where they try to imply that a proponent of atheism is a belief in evolution. It is absolutely stupid.

There is only ONE thing that you can determine about a person who calls them self atheist. That is that they don't believe in the existence of a god or gods. You can not determine anything else about them. You can't determine their morality or ethical position what so ever. If you do, then you are making another fallacy.

You are right, Krumple a known atheist and a man I both respect, love and fear said in the solace of God thread that he does indeed still at least look for God. Which gives him and his position even more credence.
More reason to question question question myself.
More room to be scared.

The more I talk about this the more indeed I find my fear melting, so something about this thread is working for me.

It is not a cult surly but it does usually always to my sensibilities feel as if an atheist when describing their atheism is trying to convince me of something, which is another term for recruitment.

Yes, just asking for it really.(sun smile)

For although I do feel fear I do also know they are usually the best source of an argument and content fueld and filled discussion.
I do often face fears.
Just not as much as I would like.
It should be easier somehow.

Well, yes....thing is, as far as I can tell (I keep thinking I have a grasp on what SS is saying, and then the floweriness of his language appears to have him contradict himself...so I think I'll just give up trying to make sense of it all after this) is that SS DOES mentally face the possibility of being atheist and has for some time?

In my experience the real fear comes before we are able to face the possibility that our beliefs may come tumbling down...cognitive dissonance theory, for instance, holds that the time we cling most fervently to our beliefs is when we are about to acknowledge the possibility that they may be wrong.

Yes, I am sure that it is harder to make that change when one is older and has an adult established identity. I guess I had assumed that SS is pretty young from the manner of his writing.

By the way, I made the transition seamlessly from Christian to agnostic at 14 (I am not actually one of the dreaded atheists!), as did many of my friends, so I am not sure re the higher education...though, if you are from the US, I suspect our religious cultures to be broadly different.

Then, frankly, your belief that '"true' 'full' atheism is means you cant believe in anything intangible like love or hope or possibly emotion because [you] also believe God is these things" needs a great deal of work towards actually understanding what you are talking about, since it is a totally false definition and you are scaring yourself with children's tales of monsters and demons.