Saturday, February 13, 2016

Should I Just Stop Responding To People Who Assume I'm A Theist?

It would save me a lot of time and energy. I mean a lot. A LOT. And it would reward those who pay more attention and who wait to decide whether a person is a theist or not until that person gives some sign about whether he or she is a theist or not -- or it would punish those more attentive people, depending on whether you consider my attention to be a reward or a punishment.

A Facebook group I'm currently in has far more actual communication on religious topics between atheists and believers than any other group I've seen. I don't think it's a coincidence that the leader of this group is a Christian who spends far more time criticizing Christians than non-Christians. It's clear that he cares about Christianity and recognizes the benefits for a group of self-criticism. Recognizing such benefits isn't rocket science, and they weren't discovered yesterday, but that recognition does seem to be entirely lacking from many religious and atheist groups.

The recognition of the downside of monotonous repetition seems to be lacking too. Have you noticed how atheists who say things like "atheists do not have a common belief system, sacred scripture or atheist Pope. This means atheists often disagree on many issues and ideas" tend to repeat a lot of the same talking points word for word -- for example: "atheists do not have a common belief system, sacred scripture or atheist Pope. This means atheists often disagree on many issues and ideas" ?

These people I'm talking about, who assume I'm a theist, they do so whenever I criticize any atheists or have positive things to say about any believers or any aspects of any religion. They do so in ostensible reaction to posts or comments in which I've gone to the trouble to say

"I'm an atheist."


Today it happened when someone responded to a blog post in which I had said

in the title of the post


that I was an atheist.

So maybe the reasonable thing to do is ignore them. Attempting to communicate with them seems to be pointless. I do put a certain amount of care and attention into my writing, perhaps it's not too much to ask for a certain amount of care and attention from my readers.

Perhaps you consider repeating talking points word for word to be communication. It sort of reminds me of some of the duller things that happen in churches, synagogues, mosques and other temples.

1 comment:

  1. The thing that comes to mind is, know your audience. If you are misunderstood, in part, it is your fault.

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