Are you an angry atheist?

[1liesalot]

I hate the church and it's repressions and manipulations and it's horrible, stupid lies. I would hate God too, but the old twat doesn't exist.

You only have to think about the genocide and horrific cruelty of the Old and New Testaments , with it's rapes and murders and stake burning and incest and threats and rampant psychopathy ... and behold, the Koran is a similar pile of bloodthirsty excrement.

I am angry. They can get the fuck out with their God and his genocidal, baby killing; flesh burning eternal hell-fire antics and his constant craving for flattery and praise. And they can fuck off saying that Jesus died to save me.  No he didn't.  Why would I need saving 2,000 years before I was born? And what sin did I commit 2,000 years before I was born that required redemption?

And then there's the flying of planes into towers and the stoning a 12 year old girl to death because she was gang raped; and the killing of bloggers in the Middle East for expressing their atheism. And then there's Hitler and Rwanda and bugger knows what all.

It is sickening, this sadistic drivel, and people have no business believing it, never mind insisting that others do likewise.

On a scale of 1-10, my anger against this shit is a 10.

I should calm myself.

What would you mark yourself as in the rage stakes (if you're angry at all, that is".   I've stuck a poll on about this.,

[Solitary]

Mine is zero for the religious that use it for good, but for the hypocrites, ones that take it so serious they are willing to die or kill for it, I'm off the chart.

[TomFoolery]

I'm assuming 1 is beatnik hippie and 10 is nuclear rage? I'm probably about a 2. Maybe less than. I'm a cheerful atheist. I don't see the point in being pissed off all the time. I get mad when people use religion to create injustice, but just generally in my every day, I'm probably the least militant atheist I've ever met.

[PickelledEggs]

GOD DAMNIT!!!!! WTF KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT!!????

[Munch]

Mine is zero for the religious that use it for good, but for the hypocrites, ones that take it so serious they are willing to die or kill for it, I'm off the chart.

pretty much this.

While I'm against the indoctrination the church represents, if you find rare cases of churches doing good for people, doing food drives of the local homeless, or having priests who allow for same sex weddings, I'm fine with them, because they seem like human beings.

The ones who use the church as a method of control, to spread his agenda for hate, wealth, control, cruelty and the like, if there made up bullshit about heaven and hell really existed, the fact they think themselves worthy candidates to be allowed into their heaven is just the greatest sense of irony and cognitive dissonance

[1liesalot]

It occurs to me that if God existed, we would have to kill him. He would have to go the way of Sadam Hussain and Bin Laden.

[GSOgymrat]

I actually was thinking about whether I'm an angry atheist earlier today while watching a YouTube video. I'm more Happy Humanist than Angry Atheist.

[Mike Cl]

I am an 11 when thinking about the hierarchy of the religions.  But the people, for the most part, are just people trying to get along. 

[Aletheia]

Meh... my anger tends to be more internalized. I'm probably about a 5 or so. I deal with the religious in my daily life because I have to.

I feel angry toward the religious community because:

- They've made women's health ridiculously harder for low-income to get.
- Gays and lesbians are not allowed to marry in my state.
- They systematically try to replace science with religious ideals in classrooms - even colleges.
- They brainwash children into accepting their religious beliefs and claim the child always had a choice.
- They have a distorted view of morality and rarely realize it.
- They are against abortion but are for the death penalty.
- They help others so they can achieve their reward (heaven).
- They demand respect for their religion even though it is intellectually dishonest.
- They have dragged out every single civil rights movement the U.S. (and possibly other countries) has had.
- They focus so intently on their reward in the afterlife that they're trashing the planet.

The list goes on. Every time someone says they are a Christian, I cringe inwardly. At best, their ability to reason is childish and at worst, they may choose to hate me because a book says they should. Their doublethink always keeps me a little on edge.

[Baruch]

It is a matter of local socialization custom.  Americans could extend hands at political rallies, but they don't do that much anymore.  Americans could extend hands at union rallies, but they don't do that anymore.  Americans could extend hands at men's clubs like Freemasons, but we don't do that anymore.  Pretty much all post-family socialization occurs in the workplace, the school, and the church.  Church is usually where you meet people you don't meet at work or at school ... it has the greatest reach across family lines.  So it is very hard to keep politics out of the church, because politics is simply citizens acting in the public sphere.  So for the un-aware ... church is often where they meet people of similar political persuasion ... and usually racial, social and cultural persuasion.  It is where our tribes and sub-tribes are formed ... but maybe not your sub-tribe.  So if you don't like American politics, or society, or culture then you will naturally dislike the church, because that is where things are cooked up ... over potluck dinners ;-)  Jefferson was totally wrong about America's future.

Perhaps Britain is different, maybe they get all their adult socialization done at the pub ... which is not like an American bar.

[Baruch]

PS - my anger about piety is a five ... because piety is the worst thing a religious person can do ... it is blatant hypocrisy.  So I am an angry theist ... toward theists ... because they give theism a bad name.  I give minority positions like atheism much more slack.

[Shiranu]

No, it doesn't do me or the world any good to be angry about it.

[SkyChief]

If you take away the brainwashing of innocent minds (children),  I'm probably a 2 or 3.

When the indoctrination-of-children  factor comes into play,  I'm a solid 10.

[Baruch]

SkyChief ... do you discuss or do politics in front of your children?  Then you make me a solid 10 too ;-)  Being naked in public, is less pornographic than politics ... and less ugly, not matter what you look like with your clothes off.  But I will chose to agree with Shiranu.

[trdsf]

The rampaging hypocrisy, the deliberate cherrypicking of an ancient text to support modern bigotries, the expectation of special privileges because they believe in something unprovable, those all move my needle towards ten.  The people at work, some of whom got into social work as an extension of their beliefs (and co-workers' beliefs seem much more towards the progressive end than the fundamentalist, from what I've seen), they move the needle towards zero.  Where my number is depends on which side of the coin I've most recently had to deal with.