The Atheist That Hates

Due to constant misunderstanding with my name I feel the need to change my intro. I am hateful, hateful of religion. I hate what religion does to people and that people use it as an excuse to not think. I have spent many years of my life as an Atheist and have learned to handle my emotions, but no other word quite describes how I feel towards religion short of hate. I am outspoken, open minded, and will share my opinion. If you're looking for someone who will always agree with you, that won't be me. (Ricky Gervais is my icon photo, I seem to be asked a lot.) var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-24846953-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[hatefulatheist]

Show proof that God is not real

Show me proof that leprechauns aren't real and I'll use your method.

[hatefulatheist]

So i like looking up other religions cause there are over 200, and thats nuts to me. I've found some beliefs that focus more on "inner peace" and finding "ones self" without the helping hand of a god. All up to person. That's pretty cool, but would you call it religion, or just a way of life? I really haven't found a solution. I'd like to think it's a "way of life" type of deal but many would argue believing in a god/s is also a way of life. I feel like there is a misconception. Thoughts?

I think a lot of this comes down to the loose definition of words when it comes to religion. There are simply no clear lines that define “this is” or “this is not” a religion. I’ve met a few people in my life who I would say their way of life is essentially their “religion” even if it doesn’t fit the classic definition. What comes to mind most are people who are absolutely devoted to the “organic, non-gmo, free range, ect” movement. I’ve encountered several people personally who seemed to have eating nothing but food “as pure as possible” as their only driving goal in life. They would believe what they believe about these things despite facts, evidence, or science to the contrary. They would preach these beliefs to anyone that would listen. “Food” became their religion.If we define a religion as the most predominant driving force in someone’s life then everyone has a religion and I personally feel the word loses much of its implied meaning. Then everything can be a religion, football, the stock market, food, popular culture, anything people can become so swept up in that it becomes the focus of their life. To me saying something is a religion has a much deeper implication.To me Western Buddhism (the stripped down version of it) is not a religion but many people will claim it is. Atheism is more certainly not a religion but it doesn’t stop people from continually calling it one. In the end you will likely never get everyone to agree to what exactly a religion is because it all comes down to what that word means to them and how they perceive the definition of it. It also really doesn’t matter what exactly you call it, one man’s religions is another man’s myth.

[hatefulatheist]

Most people are so concerned with their own self interest they literally can not understand how other people can look beyond themselves. I’ve had so many people assume that I’m gay, trans, black, or a woman simply because I will speak out boldly for the rights and recognition of these people. It’s as if they can’t understand why someone would ever possibly defend these people and their right to a happy and prosperous life without being one of those people. 

[hatefulatheist]

Random Ramblings

I haven’t logged in to this page in forever and honestly I’m not even sure why I did today. My life has been in a weird place the last many months. I was laid off from the job I had most of my adult life and now am at a place I really don’t enjoy and doesn’t make me happy. I don’t know what else to do though since I still need to keep paying the bills. I continue to focus on my family and have been more than happy to give all I can to raising my two fantastic sons. I used to feel so enlightened to the world and so aware of what was going on but in truth it was harming me so much. I walked around angry at the world. I would start arguments on the internet at the drop of the hate with the hopes of changing people but really only focused on the goal of being right. I was angry at people, angry at things I can’t change but desperately wish I could. It has only become worse the last year with the absolute worst president in history. I’ve had to shut off for self preservation sake. I’ve had to numb myself for the world to prevent being overcome by it. I’ve come to realize that ignorance is bliss is a statement more true than anything I could ever say. Knowledge and intellect causes suffering and anguish because you realize what is going on in the world beyond you. You realize it doesn’t have to be that way but due to the nature of people it is. Greed, hate, fear, loathing, all of these emotions drive much of the “evil” we see in the world today. Good and evil aren’t made and controlled by imaginary figures like the devil and god. They’re the emotion inside the hearts and heads of men and women the world over. 

[hatefulatheist]

God is not a religinal God he's a relational God and he is hates religion too!

God is not real. So what you impose on your imaginary friend as hating or not hating is completely inconsequential. Poor grammar and the religious go hand in hand.

[hatefulatheist]

I've read your posts on this website and on Twitter and it seems that you are against everything that is "established" whether it's political, social, sexual, economic, religious, education-related, etc. Are you sure that you're not simply very unhappy and lash out at anything and everything due to your unhappiness? I agree that there are many things in this world that, if changed, would make the world a better place. But EVERYTHING seems to bother you! Maybe the problem is partially within you.

I’m not against “everything” but I certainly look at the world and see that humanity could do better. I look at how we struggle against each other instead of work together and it bothers me. I hope for a better future and a better world because we really can accomplish it but it seems that there are always forces at work looking to divide us. My world view is actually quite positive and life affirming even if it is often presented in the negative against some other idea or view. I often find that I am best mentally stimulated when challenged by someone or presented a view to overcome, it’s just how my mind works.

As far as if I’m happy or not I hope you’ll be relieved to know I’m actually quite happy. I’m not an over the top bubbly outwardly happy type, I’m certainly an introvert, but I am quite happy with where I am in my life. The fact that I am happy and content in life is part of what encourages me to speak out against wrongs when I look around and see so many others that are not happy or struggling for reasons that could be helped.

I assure you I don’t claim to be a perfect person, perhaps there are many things wrong with me, but I feel that I have a well aligned moral compass and a caring for humanity. I feel a love for people and for life and more than just about anything else I want other people to be able to live the best life they can. I may not always be right, but at the core of what I push for and hope for is what I genuinely feel will be better for humanity and the possible future of humanity.

[hatefulatheist]

I feel so sad that you have to waste time and energy on being so pathetic to bitch about religion. You're just a sad ass troll who has nothing to live for. You're pathetic Sincerely an agnostic. You're pathetic. :) ;)

Agnostic theist? Agnostic Atheist? Agnostic deist?

[hatefulatheist]

What happened? Why aren't you throwing Christians to the lions anymore? I guess defending a negative wears a person out after a while, huh?

I have had this page for over 6 years at this point, that’s a very long time. I can’t say that things have completely changed in this country because they haven’t but I can say I see a lot of progress. In just a few short years I’ve seen many many more people start to take up the fight to maintain a secular society. I’ve seen many more people willing to speak out against religious abuse and tyrannical religious powers. The small minority is steadily growing.

I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of debates, but I’ve yet to come across a single new argument in years. There just in no defense to organized religion I even consider worthwhile at this point. I’m still, of course, an Atheist but at this point I feel less need to actively defend it and discuss it. I’ve been able to focus a lot more on other things in my life and I feel that the fight to oppose religion has strong momentum. I’m not done completely because there is still plenty to do, and who knows I may feel the need to take up the charge myself again, but there are a lot of very capable people taking up the task and I’m enjoying watching it.

[hatefulatheist]

From what I've read here, you've contemplated life more than the average person. So I'll ask you the same question that Pontius Pilate put to Jesus while deliberating what to do with him: "What is truth?" I don't plan to post any comments about the reply you might offer, I am just curious about how you would answer the question.

In all honesty it is nearly impossible for us to say, as people. I do believe that there is such a thing as the Truth, an objective truth, but can we perceive it correctly? We’re imperfect beings using our extremely imperfect senses to try and filter what we observe and experience in a turbulent and unpredictable universe. Even if we were looking directly at the truth, could we know it? Would we accept it as true? Would we see it the same as others do? It’s hard to say, the Truth may exist, but what is truth depends on the person. How you see truth may be a matter of subjective opinion, but what is truth may simply be impossible for us to know. In the end, it is not for me to say, even if I could, would you believe me?

[hatefulatheist]

You say to ask anything so here goes: You seem to be clued in to the racial dynamic in the U.S. So tell me, why is it that nearly every ad on television that features black people will have them dancing before the ad ends? Have you noticed this?

The majority of Americans really don’t care about racial stereotypes, they’re so commonly portrayed in the media that most people have come to expect them. It has come to be accepted by enough of America that advertisers don’t have to worry about being labeled as racist because of it. It really isn’t anything new, in America we’ve used racial stereotypes in advertising for nearly as long as there has been advertising. I buy and sell quite a few antique and vintage items and nearly all advertising that features African Americans before the 1950′s is hugely stereotyped or extremely negative. Big black smiling mouths to sell watermelon, black mammys for your pancake mix/cookie jar/salt and pepper shaker, even Zulu Lulu stir sticks for your drinks and Little Black Sambo books for the kids. We’re really not so far removed from segregation or even slavery in America, it is a recent part of our history and as a result many people aren’t really shocked by racial stereotyping.

The part of it that really surprises me is that it is so common even African Americans have no trouble accepting it. Usually these commercials that feature dancing black families are selling a product they intend to gear at least partly towards black families, and they buy it. If the advertising wasn’t effective they would likely change their methods but they stick with it because quite simply, it works. Perhaps as we continue to evolve (slowly) in America we’ll become more disgusting with the casual racism we see on a daily basis and the tides will change. Once advertisers no longer get positive reactions from these chariactured advertisements we’ll see a change, until then we’ll continue to see African Americans mainly cast to rap, dance, or play some kind of sport in advertising.

[hatefulatheist]

You have an "interesting" albeit overly simplistic view of Christianity, though it obviously serves as a good straw man. Would you also characterize Buddhists as just a bunch of people sitting around trying to think about nothing? Also, you say you hate religion, not religious people, yet you seem to aim a lot of insults and condescension toward religious people. Shouldn't they be seen as victims to be pitied rather than abused, even if they are willing victims of their own misguided beliefs?

If you’re referring to my most recent post I would think it was quite obvious that I was providing a brief simplistic view of Christianity. At this point my blog page has been going for near 6 years (I feel so old) and given the number of times I’ve discussed Christianity it should be clear my understanding of the religion goes much beyond the brief explanation I jokingly provided. In a way though the chariactures aren’t entirely invalid. Your Buddhist example is actually somewhat fitting, in the simplistic sense. Meditation may be calming but ultimately it is as useless as prayer.

As for the second part of your question I have to say I find it quite funny, it’s almost as if you’ve actually read my blog. I’ve said numerous times that I do see many religious people as victims of the religion they have tied themselves to. It is unfortunate and in some ways they are to be pitied but a lot of the ignorance stems from wanton ignorance. People don’t have to remain sheltered away from the truth, they don’t have to ignore secular logic and insight. They simply chose to ignore fact and reason to insulate their preconceived beliefs. These people hang on to their ignorance with everything they possibly can, pushing away anyone who may disturb their way of thinking. That, I can not pity, that I can only condemn and hold contempt for and that is unfortunately how the most fundamentalist religious adults often behave.

I do still hold a strong amount of pity for the other victims of religion, the people who don’t have the sense and reason to comprehend complex ideas, the people who have been victimized far too long to stand a chance at recovery, people with no opportunity for a real education that can provide an alternative world view, and the children brainwashed in to servitude. Unfortunately these victims are often the body count of the willfully ignorant fundamentalists I mentioned above. Religion does have victims to be pitied, to feel sorry for, and to empathize with but those victims are the direct result of other religious believers who look to manipulate and control others, perpetuating the system of abuse. The compassionate thing to do as an outside observer to this system is to call for an end to it, reform is a failure. The long and short of it is this, there are victims of religion, and religion is still to blame.

[hatefulatheist]

I am myself an Atheist but I need your help responding to a quote. "Atheism. The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically re-arranged itself for no reason what so ever inte self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs. Like how do you respond to that?

I’ve seen that quote passed around a time or two but it’s honestly the type of thing that is hardly worth responding to. When someone wants to frame an idea in extreme wording they usually don’t expect a real response and even if they receive one they likely don’t care. If you look at the science of it there is good reasoning why something would necessarily come from nothing. Lawrence Krauss has a great lecture entitled “A Universe from Nothing” that explains a lot of the theories and possible science regarding it. It really is an interesting topic but normally the people passing around this meme don’t care about the real science, they just think they’re making a point.

You can easily turn around and make just about any religious idea sound equally as ridiculous and preposterous.

Christianity: The belief that a magic, eternal, all powerful man zapped all of the universes in to existence. Created all of the plants and animals with a point of his finger. Fixed the moons and stars in to their places. Formed the oceans and mountains with a wave of his hand. Yet he couldn’t stop a woman from eating an apple from one particular tree. So he kicks the people he created out of the paradise he created for them, which is of course where he decided to put the apples tree that he never wanted people to eat from. Then he watched it all unfold for a while, decided he made a mistake, sent a giant flood to kill everyone out except one family. He lets people rebuild again. Then he decides to forcefully impregnate a virgin woman with his son in the remote and mostly illiterate Middle East so we could torture and murder his son in hopes that the magic man could finally forgive us for the woman who ate the apple in the garden that he created for her but didn’t want her to eat. He did all of this just because he really really needs you to love him, and if you don’t you deserve to be tortured for all of eternity. Makes total sense right?

Would love to try to see a Christian honestly respond to that absurd (but basically accurate) description.

[hatefulatheist]

So for an atheist, right and wrong is based on what, exactly? Is it simply "might makes right"?

It’s based on the same things you use to decide what is right and wrong, the culture you find yourself in, the morality of the times, and how you are raised and educated. “Right” and “wrong” aren’t some grandiose concepts beyond us, they’re relative words we simply use to describe actions based on our own perception of what is right and wrong. The way I perceive morality is likely different than yours, the morality of people in other areas of the world may vary even more. When we say something is “right” or “wrong” we can only say so based on our own relative experiences and perceptions. I don’t believe there is such a thing as an absolute moral wrong, there are certainly many things that virtually everyone agrees is “wrong” but that’s based on our agreement, not some divine commandment.

So in the end I get my morality from the exact same place you do. My perception and how I feel about things may vary but you and I aren’t so different in that regard. No one gets their morality from the bible anymore and that should be self evident. If people continued to rely on scripture for morality we’d have an extremely different society than what we do. Personally that’s something I’m quite grateful for, I wouldn’t want to see anyone killed over working on a Sunday, or being homosexual, or being perceived as a witch, or for not being a virgin on their wedding night, or...well, you get the point.

[hatefulatheist]

You say you hate religion but you don't realize that you are religous.

As many times as I’ve heard people say Atheism is a religion I’ve never heard any reason why other than “people say it is”. Atheism is the complete lack of religion. So sorry to tell you but you can’t equate me to the religious nuts , it simply doesn’t work.

[hatefulatheist]

Please stick to religion.

Pretty sure I’ll post or talk about whatever I want, but thanks for taking 2 seconds out of your day to send a worthless comment.

[hatefulatheist]

I love your opinions of things! We have similar views on most things but do you really think that the police really mistreat black people? I believe that there is no race issue here. There are good police and bad police and blacks are not the only ones who are mistreated by them

Black people aren’t the only ones mistreated by police officers but I do feel there is a big racial issue at play. Black people are disproportionately targeted and abused by officers, a fact that many people seemed unaware of until recent events. They are far more likely to be profiled, questioned, and ultimately mistreat by police. One fact that really stuck out in my mind is that black male teens are 21 times more likely to be killed by police officers. TWENTY-ONE times more likely, that number is beyond ridiculous. Obviously I don’t think anyone should be killed by police officers but even if it was twice as likely it would be too high. When the number is that outrageous there is an indication of other factors at play.

You also have to look at the prison system, I won’t bother to drag out all the facts and statistics because they’re readily available online for anyone that is interested but African Americans make up a hugely disproportionate amount of the prison population. The amount of time that they serve for similar crimes vs. criminals of other race is another tell tale sign. Basically if you look at the facts and the figure it almost always boils down to larger segments of African Americans in the criminal system than what is represented in the general population.

As for what drives this animosity personally I think there are several factors but they basically all boil down to that one word, racism. There has been a lot of historic black/white race animosity in this country and it is far from over. Black neighborhoods are generally kept in lower levels of abject poverty than even the poorest of white communities. African American youth have less opportunity at quality education, they often have less opportunity to even make it in the work place or advance in the work place. The factors are simply all stacked against them.

Obviously there are good cops and there are bad cops and I don’t want to come across as a cop hater but the systematic racism that we see in our country in so many other aspects would obviously bleed over in to the police force as well. When we see so much racism in our country it should come as no shock that we see it in the police force as well. It just becomes so much more disturbing when we see it there because it comes with a body count. I definitely think there are many racial issues at play and I think to ignore that factor would be detrimental to the whole conversation.

[hatefulatheist]

Aside from opposing religion, what are your other views? Where do you stand on issues of gender and race? How do you feel about capitalist economics and the strain of Enlightenment thought which forms their theoretical basis?

I’ve actually been a bit pretty quiet on this page in particular but I do still put up thoughts frequently on Twitter and there I express my views on a lot of those topics. I’ll give a brief view of my opinion on these things but obviously there is a lot that can be said on these topics. There has been a lot of discussion lately regarding the topic of race in America especially as it relates to interactions with police officers and to put it generally I’m on the side of the people. A lot of what I say on this topic doesn’t mater so much because I’m just a regular white guy. I’m fine with that because my voice shouldn’t be a loud one in the conversation, I’m just putting myself out there as an ally to the people that have to personally face these struggles everyday. The police mistreatment of African Americans in particular should have been stopped long ago and we’re at a very interesting time in those developments. There are many racial issues beyond that but it seems to be the hot button topic.

Regarding gender and sexuality it should hopefully be obvious I have always been in favor of equal treatment for same sex marriage. I also fully support transgender individuals in their difficult endeavor to try to be who they are. I’ve had enough discussions/argument with transphobic bigots during the recent Caitlyn Jenner discussion to almost get burnt out on the topic. I have a transgender sibling and when I was younger I had a hard time understanding it, I put out a lot of the same callous and ignorant statements I see people putting out now. I took the time to learn and look back with embarrassment at my ignorance on the topic years ago. Trans people are wonderful, beautiful, amazing people and to be who they are takes a bravery and courage that many other people could never muster.

When it comes to the economy and politics I’m an interested observer but I realize it’s a topic I don’t have strong knowledge in. I think Capitalism is a failure to the people. It does give opportunity and chance to a lucky few and those who succeed see it as something “anyone” could do. Perhaps when our country was young and wealth wasn’t so disproportionately distributed it was the right choice, perhaps it really was what allowed America to grow and thrive so quickly, but we’re not that America anymore. Times have changed and along with that our policy and practice of government should change and evolve. I think socialism best mirrors the policy of government I’d rather see but it is not a view point I hold a strong opinion on when it comes to debates. When it comes to how our government and economy should run I’m very open to ideas, but it should be clear the system we have is long overdue for a revamp.