this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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A lot of these pastors have to be looking at their steadily declining congregations and thinking maybe it's not the kids who are wrong, after all.
That requires at least a mediocre amount of critical thinking skills and those are taboo in religious organizations, so doubt it.
Why? They clearly choose not to apply that ability to a big part of their lives. In this specific case under discussion, their entire career requires not applying any critical thinking. Their paycheck depends on their ability to convince other people of things that are not and can never be supported by any actual evidence.
It's the reason that crowd is so susceptible, as a trend, to con men, malicious misinformation, and developing entire belief systems off a Facebook meme that pairs one politician's face with a fake quote or a quote from a totally different politician. They're trained, often from birth, that evidence is not necessary in the process of deciding what you want to believe; in fact, that evidence is often the bad guy (in that it opposes "faith").
So, no. We'll drop the characterization if and only if it stops being relevant to our day-to-day lives in America. It's not the atheists who are saying they think I should get the death penalty (DeSantis's preacher), that I should be shot in the back of the head (Texas Baptist Church), that God should kill me slowly (Pure Words Baptist Church), and that I should be hunted with dogs (governor of SC).
I honestly believe the ones that matter certainly don't. The ones who are paying the church's bills and showing up to their pep rallies every week are very clearly not spending any time thinking about it.
Who? Let me know when they start affecting actual government policy, or even just going on TV and saying "We condemn those other Christians who say gay people should be shot in the back of the head." That's what we've been demanding from Muslims since 2001, why are you special?
Blah blah blah, fallacious appeal to authority, blah blah blah. Name-dropping is not "critical thinking", and you really shouldn't have included a literal, straight-up alchemist in that list if you were trying to use it to make a point.
MLK and Malcom X were mathematicians? TIL.
So what I'm hearing you say here is: "If smart people believe in magic sky fairy, magic sky fairy must be logical to believe in," which is about the level of discourse I'd expect from someone unfamiliar with the concept of critical thinking. Thanks for being an object lesson.
Please disengage, this is simply not productive. I understand you may have been tangibly hurt by religious folks who have persecuted you or your loved ones. I have suffered real harm from this as well. But making sweeping statements about broad categories of people is generally not a great take and being confrontational with a moderator asking for some civility in a thread and appealing to humanity is not a good look.
They're responding to the mods energy.
The top level comment from the mod was not aggressive or accusatory. They escalated.
Ultimately it doesn't matter who's in the wrong, it's time for everyone to disengage. This is not productive.
You don't see an issue with a MOD starting with
That's really not something a mod should say and pretty much dismissing an opinion without even engaging it. I guess atheists are just ok to dismiss and deny an opinion?
That's a bad faith interpretation of what the mod said and who they were replying to. They were pointing out that the idea that all religious people are devoid of critical thinking skills is an incorrect take, and they were asking for people to move beyond a specific kind of toxic atheistic leaning.
What you are accusing me of, dismissing and denying all atheists (channel switching upwards) is what the original comment thread was doing, dismissing and denying all religious individuals.
To be absolutely clear, I think that religious people who are bigoted and incapable of critical thinking are a problem to society and I have suffered directly at the hands of these individuals, but we should be focusing on that or asking questions to confirm this shared concern rather than attacking each other because we jump to the conclusion that any push back to our words must come from an ideological standpoint in opposition to ours.
They could argue their point and were not attacking anyone specific. The mod continued to be upset and eventually attacked the poster specifically, when the posted stayed hypothetical.
If you don't know how dismissive of atheists that saying is, how it's used to shut down their opinion, which they were sharing without attacking someonee specifically, likely because they became atheists after a lot of personal work, is exactly why atheists get shut out of a conversation.
Is their opinion not valid? Have they attacked anyone or taken any rights, or just expressed an opinion they offered to discuss and never attcked anyone?
Literally they pointed out the flaws in the mods argument and the mod got mad. Only one group was being aggressive, one group made a mildly flippant joke and was willing to discuss the nuance. One became sarcastic and rude.
What's happening in this thread of replies is exactly what I was pointing out when I stepped in earlier... This is not productive. Please disengage.
If you are unable to see how this is not productive, I would suggest you take a step back, disengage, and reread this thread with a fresh pair of eyes. Reread this thread and try to put yourself in the shoes of someone else who might not hold the same opinion as you do. In fact, I would encourage you to make up a purely hypothetical person, someone who is nice and caring but also religious, and ask yourself how this might feel.
If that's not enough for you to see where things got derailed, here's a detailed reply to some of your points
Dismissing what someone says by using the following text
is escalating. If OP was treating the mod with good faith, they would not be dismissive of them in a way which indicates they do not value their intelligence.
but even if you disagree with that
is an ad hominem and a direct attack on the mod. The person wasn't just "pointing out the flaws in the mods argument", they were dismissive and treating the mod with bad faith to push their point across as superior. They were not engaging in good faith.
At this point I'm going to disengage. If this isn't enough for you to understand that things went bad somewhere and I stepped in to try and diffuse an unproductive conversation and to help keep this place civil, I can't help you anymore and you either need to trust me, trust the opinions of others who have replied in this post, or move on from this issue. This isn't productive.
I am disengaged, i have a life and the site was down.
If you don't see the dog whistles that started because teens leaving religion on the internet were trying to explore themselves and break from what most people only follow because they were raised in it that the internet dismissed because of memes more than actual atheists causing issues.
Then beehaw is as bad as i was suspecting about trying too hard to appeal to everyone. You clearly wanted your mods words to be taken with respect and NOT users. If YOU are an admin and cannot see how your staff started issues and someone simply stepped in and stood firm, then you don't allow people to stand up for themselves and as a queer atheist i get it, it's not as popular, but you wouldn't let any other minority group be treated this way and your administration needs to think about that.
Beehaw is good in theory but when you do not allow anyone to discuss things and come after the group who was under attack, your team needs more experience. I wish you all well and maybe beehaw will mature, but right now it's centist leaning new age more than anything based on reality.
Because you're making an accusation here I want to clear up a misconception you seem to have. I am a queer atheist. The mod who stepped in is also a queer atheist. Please stop making assumptions without asking questions. I understand being guarded as a protective mechanism against the people who have caused you real harm in your life, I too have experienced similar harm. But I'm not out here to censor your opinion or attack you. I'm merely asking for you to disengage as things have gone off the rails.
I apologize for being a little annoyed right now. I feel like I'm being moderated for defending myself against their escalation.
My response to that top level comment was measured and nuanced, with specific examples of real events and an analysis of the mindset behind those events.
Their reply to me included all caps, excessive punctuation, extremely bad-faith arguments (the actual religious views of every single one of the names they dropped are incredibly complicated, not just "was Christian"; again, one member of that esteemed list literally believed he could turn lead into gold with magic), and that's assuming calling the question of critical thinking outdated and childish ("2010 New Atheist") is not an aggressive escalation.
Furthermore, you told me to disengage, and then the mod continued to engage. I'd appreciate it if they received a similar request, because right now it feels like you're holding my arms behind my back while they get to keep punching me.
That's not how this came off to myself, or the people who reported various comments in this thread. I would encourage you to diffuse rather than escalate if you are ever met with something that feels like an escalation. It's impossible to remove yourself entirely from a situation where you feel you are being attacked, which is why I push towards the concept of good faith. When it feels like someone is escalating- ask questions and try to diffuse rather than assume you have interpreted their words correctly.
If you need a more detailed view of how I interpreted the interaction, feel free to check my replies further down this thread to another individual.
To be absolutely clear and transparent, they have and they have since deleted some of their replies. On a more practical level I am much more familiar with this mod and their judgement than I am with you, and I'm going to be generally siding with any moderator we have as they get vetted rather thoroughly... however, we are all human here and we make mistakes and we engage in human behavior. Please have patience with us and treat us with good faith. I'm sorry if anyone failed you here, but this kind of engagement- a good faith one, where you ask questions, and try to solve problems is what I personally love to see and it's in my experience the best way to resolve conflict. Thank you for engaging in this manner 💜
Well, I mean... ok, that's fair. I can't argue with that.
To be clear I chose to state that because I want to acknowledge my own biases here and the fact that I'm often pressed for time and making a response/decision based on a report or an escalation from a mod and a quick glance of what's going on. The more that you make it unequivocally clear that you're operating in good faith (even past the point that it is warranted) the more likely I am act differently based on reports/escalations given the fact that I don't really know you right now. I don't want to assign blame to anyone here, merely to diffuse a situation which went off the rails. Hopefully that context helps you understand why I acted in the way that I did.
No, that's totally fine, and I'm being completely serious. Sometimes it's hard to remember that this community is much smaller and tighter than the ones I'm used to. It honestly never occurred to me that y'all would, like, actually know each other, which is my own bias.
Thank you for being understanding and I hope this interaction hasn't soured your experience of this platform 💜
No, absolutely not. By Reddit standards, this was a tiff. Maybe a smaller tussle. Definitely not a kerfluffle.
Besides, part of this is a "me" problem. I'm still adjusting to not having to come out of the gate swinging the first time I sense hostility. Did I respond to an energy? Sure. Did I respond to an intentional energy? .....eh, maybe, maybe not. Did I go from 0-100 too fast? Probably. What I'm saying is, I see how I could have handled that better. And the fact that you took the time to engage with me over it is a big positive for the platform.
You know, it’s fine to dislike religious people and believe different things. But you’re acting pretty intolerant here. Insulting others beliefs and intelligence isn’t cool just cause you disagree with it.
“Level of discourse…from someone unfamiliar with the concept of critical thinking.” “Magical sky faerie” “fallacious appeal to authority”. You sound like a pseudo-intellectual who gets off on putting down others and you found a population that you feel you’re allowed to do this to.
Reported your comment as well. You don’t have to be nasty just cause you dislike someone’s perspective on life. And don’t hit me with “well they hate xyz people”. I know you know not all religious folks share the same view - or I’d at least hope so.
This is such a bad reading of the comment that I can only imagine you're acting in bad faith. You have made the assumption that reason will inevitably lead people to the same conclusions about the world, but that is not true, and that is what the OP is bringing up. How is it that many people, when presented with the same sets of facts, and using the same reasonable principles, can come to differing conclusions? This question should keep you up at night, but instead it seems you're only interested in saying "those other people are dumb, I am smart."
I'm sorry. The question that keeps me up at night is "How are people able to just decide to believe something with no (or less than no) practical evidence?". Just because a lot of people have managed it, even people who are very evidence-based in every other part of their life, doesn't mean I can just do it. I'd literally have to think less about the implications of such a thing on the everyday world. I'd have to stop asking questions (like: "Does God help anyone? If so, how does he choose? If not, why pray?", and no, "we just can't understand him" is not an answer I can just choose to believe because I like it).
So yeah, this is obviously a "me" problem, since everyone else on this instance seems to intuitively grasp the idea that one can actually come to a valid, reality-based conclusion that God exists and I'm the "2010 New Atheist" for not being able to get on board.
You're a mod and being this way publicly? Personally attacking?
I think 75% of the population literally try not to have critical thinking in one major aspect of their life that literally says don't think, have faith.
It's a part of religion to not think, to follow and obey. It's sweet you want to defend them in other avenues, but cognitive dissonance is also causing a lot of sorrow and pain while religious people on majority are standing back and following their leaders, even the progressive ones, aren't willing to progress fast enough. They're still following something that's usually mostly historically been oppressive and regressive to maintain power over the masses.
The issue is the framing of "organized religion" when what you really mean is "Christianity". This has been the problem with new atheism for a long time: take valid criticisms of Christianity, along with the trauma and experiences in Christian churches, and then try to paint all religion with that same brush. And you can't do that.
You're angry at Christianity and its hegemony in American life. I get it and I share many of those fears and frustrations. You mentioned things happening in FL. I'm in FL, and as a queer person it's fucking terrifying here. But the momentum behind that push isn't coming from synagogues or mosques, or from Hindus or Buddhists or Taoists. It's an explicit white Christian supremacist movement.
Christianity's dogma, style of worship, mindsets, etc don't map to other faiths. And even inside of Christianity there's people who are trying to push back. But saying that things like this are characteristic of all religions shows a complete lack of understanding of faiths outside of Christianity.
I mean. They're doubling down on stupid i think it's fair to call them out on it. In order to follow most organized religion, you are taught to kill critical thinking and have faith. It's literally a part of the whole thing
You’re in a thread that literally is about churches not going along with homophobic takes. People keep saying “religious people should stand up against the bigots” and because they are in the example, you have bigots splitting off. And then turn around and insult the intelligence of said religious people still.
Who really is the person showing a lack of critical thinking skills? I’d argue the one whose take lacks any nuance.
It's about one small group. And one that couldn't stop being taken over by assholes and has a schism because the more conversative left.
I have done a lot of research and could have a nuanced discussion. I don't think claiming people who have negative options are "2010 Atheists" is the bit of a bigot in this case. I think religion has enough people carrying water who were just raised in it and don't think critically.
Probably not. Atheistic fundamentalists are still fundamentalists. Their thinking is just as flawed
Not all religious people are unable to think critically, but all religious people are able and willing to think uncritically, that is what "faith" is.