this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
732 points (95.5% liked)
Atheism
4070 readers
134 users here now
Community Guide
Archive Today will help you look at paywalled content the way search engines see it.
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
If you want your space listed in this sidebar and it is especially relevant to the atheist or skeptic communities, PM DancingPickle and we'll have a look!
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.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I married a Jewish woman, but she's not religious in any way. After we had a son, the amount of people who thought it was ok to ask us about the status of our child's penis was alarming. I didn't mince words with them either. If you're gonna ask me, I'm gonna tell you why I think it's fucked and I won't allow anyone to mutilate my child, I don't care how much it offends your religion.
How's your kid's penis doing otherwise?
Found the GOP candidate
Idk I don't find it very alarming that they asked about it. I guess it would be messed up if there wasn't this cultural and religious thing but it is a thing. If people started pushing for it then that's fucked up.
I think what OP means is that when you've been immersed in rationality for a while then suddenly in a situation where you're surrounded by religious people again, the things that are "normal" to them can be jarring to you. It's quite an "emperor has no clothes" moment.
Sometimes I attend 12-step meetings again for social reasons or friendly support or job hunting and even the boilerplate texts will still make me be like “What in the tarnation?” Like literal tarnation.
I do get that, but it's still a very present and well known thing so it seems surprising that they'd be so surprised by it
"This fucked up thing is fine, because we're used to it"
I feared Trump a lot less after Bush broke me. I fear another Trump less even. Younger, more idealistic me would vomit with disappointment in my shrugging and sighing instead of seething and yelling.
That's how things culturally work, yeah
You're fine with fucked up things, as long as people aren't bothered by them? So you don't have any personal morals at all, you just do what you think other people think should be done?
Well... to each their own, I guess.
I wasn't describing any of my personal sentiments though. I was just explaining to you how often societal things that might seem fucked up to an outsider might seem normal and mundane to those within that culture.
Lemmy is incapable of dealing with abstract thoughts, your comment made sense to me
Yes, the point here being that it will SEEM normal. Stress on "seem". Not "be".
Normalising something like genital mutilation doesn't make it okay, does it? That's the point. We all know that a lot of the time we do learn what is right and what is wrong from the behaviour of others, but the point I'm making it is that even when we know that, we know that morals don't stem from those norms, but from somewhere else.
Just like what we understand that laws aren't morals. They're not far from each other, clearly related concepts. But very clearly not the same thing.
Thus we know that norms don't make morals, but we've a hard time saying what exactly does. With blatant examples though, it should be easily recognisable. The controversy in this subject I feel stems a lot from the fact that people like me who are from societies which don't have this practice, are reacting to it strongly, because it's genital mutilation, and for one, the "weird" society is the one which usually is the default normative one, so... there's controversy.
Americans aren't used to being criticised as "barbaric" imo.
Talking about it is pretty normal as in it's not very rare or distinct thing, pretty mundane. That's why being alarmed by it seems strange.
I think most of the world does that to them already.
"Pretty mundane."
For.. you.
It's very rare where I live. We don't practice genital mutilation. So it makes one raise one's eyebrows somewhat when people consider it... "pretty mundane."
It's not mundane for me or where I live but their post mentioned the wife was Jewish and I assumed the person was American, in both of those cases it'd be a very mundane topic when it comes to babies.
You should consider this from their context, not yours or mine.
I'm sort of tired of repeating myself...
Yes, I understand that FOR AMERICANS, the genital mutilation of infants is very mundane.
The point I'm making is that we know that "what people are used to" doesn't define what is right or wrong. We know that. Granted, it's hard to say where exactly morals come from, but when we face something that feels grossly immoral, we have a strong feeling about it. Like say things having to do with the genitals of defenseless infants.
The shocking part in this is how it's acceptable for some — like you — that some people do accept these things. There's a whole lot of shit that say, former fascist states have done, which would be beyond horrendous, even if somewhat "mundane" to the people living in those states at those times. I'm sure you wouldn't say "you should consider it from X perspective" if I was talking about that, because you'd realise I'm not talking about the morality of the controversial thing, I'm talking about how shocking it is how easily we (humans in general) can make horrendous things feel mundane by being exposed to them for a while, despite there still being knowledge that that thing isn't okay. so essentially it's willfull ignorance of something we know to be wrong, and the fact that we can do that so easily...
I wasn't talking about right or wrong, just what is normal or mundane. I haven't taken any moral position on that.
Yeah, and what I am saying is that you should.
Seems pretty useless to do that here, now, when we all agree.
So you agree that you should have an opinion on this, when you just explicitly avoided that, despite that having been my point all along?
Ei tarvinnu kyllä nickiä kattoa että tunnisti suomalaisen.
I have always had an opinion about it, I just don't see a reason to bring it up when it is not the point of what I'm saying. That could be a little obnoxious.
Oh yes, it would just be totally obnoxious to voice an opinion against child genital mutilation, on a FORUM.
If it's on a place where everyone already agrees and it's not even the point of what I was saying then yes, it can be pretty obnoxious.
I'm not neutral though.
Okay. Ever heard of the term "avoidance"?
You've misunderstood. I have a moral position, I haven't made a moral stance in this thread. Do you get the difference?
For about a dozen comments, I've been banging on about how my point is that my opinion is that there is absolutely no reason not to oppose child genital mutilation — during which you first actively avoided even taking a stance, and now say you always had a stance, but just refrained from telling it out of politeness.
I've seen this a thousand times. Like I said, I knew your nationality before I happened to gaze at the nick. That attitude is exactly what I've been protesting the whole time. Protesting, and reiterating that I'm protesting it. Which you've not gotten. Despite me pointing this out several times.
You're here protesting someone (who already agrees with you) because I didn't care to soapbox about my view since the discussion didn't call for it and we all already agree. This is slacktivism at its finest.
You very explicitly stated "I haven’t taken any moral position on that", but after I point out how weird it would be to not have a position on that, you suddenly always had one, just conveniently adding "in this thread" to the end.
You chose to say that you're actively deciding not to voice an opinion, ie you're proclaiming a neutral position in the context of this conversation. That is a position.
It's not soapboxing to not be pathologically avoidant of ever having an opinion publicly.
The sad part is you honestly don't even what I'm talking about. I'm yet to figure out what it is about the Finnish language / culture / mentality which breeds this sort of thing. It's infuriatingly common in Finland.
I already explained it to you in an earlier reply. At this point I'm really not sure what you're hoping to achieve.
You've excused something, yes.
I'm hoping to get through to you, and failing miserably, I'm honestly having a hard time coming up with a more explicit explanation than the dozen I've given. I bet you haven't even looked up avoidance.
You sure are. Because I have no idea what you were trying to achieve.
We agree on this, definitely. If you reread the thread a few times after informing yourself of how avoidance as a coping strategy works, you'll have a chance, I'm sure.
Coping about... what, exactly?
This was a fun discussion, started out of nothing and never went anywhere