Mar

Are Atheists Rude?

I admit that sometimes I am a little strident and rude towards believers in this blog – in reality, I believe that I respect people and don’t wish to belittle or rubbish their beliefs or more accurately their personal viewpoint on life.
The aims of sites like these is not – or shouldn’t be – to state that we are better or our opinions matter more than others. Our aims are to educate and bring reasoned discussion to the religious question.

I know from personal experience, that some believers take any criticism or even discussion of their faith as a personal affront and disrespect of themselves as individuals. Often a phrase like ‘I’m happy to talk to you about religion but my personal beliefs are not up for discussion’ is offered by them as if they are somehow above all scrutiny and that personal beliefs hold some special, sanctified position.

I don’t have any problem with people holding a personal viewpoint and refusing to discuss it – BUT by the same token they don’t then have the right to attempt to foist their views on others and that includes indoctination of children, whether their own or other’s.

It really is quite simple – if you don’t want to be insulted, then don’t speak to me as if your beliefs are factual. I won’t hesitate to tell you exactly what I think about your beliefs and if you choose to be offended by that – tough!

Now, is that viewpoint rude? Not in my opinion it isn’t.

If the same person were to voice their opinion about a political subject, he or she would not object to my voicing my viewpoint that may or may not include why I think their viewpoint is incorrect.

It all comes down to the same thing everytime – this word ‘belief’. In ANY other context, the word belief can easily be replaced by ‘in my opinion’ or ‘I’ve looked at it and my conclusion is’ – but not in religion.

Belief to all religious believers means something different. It means MY RIGHT TO HOLD ANY BELIEF I LIKE WITHOUT FEAR OF IT BEING QUESTIONED OR DISCUSSED.

In other words – ‘I’m right and I don’t have to prove it or justify it. I just am right. End of story’