Are Atheist Anti-Religionists The Aggressors In Conflicts In Social Media Discussions?

re "(Atheists) are saying things like “our sky wizard” and “fairy tales”.

 I have never heard an insulting response from a Christian."
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[In reply] 

I have.
I have heard Christians (here) say way worse things.

I'll come back to that in a moment.

But still

I understand your objection. 

Sometimes 
a critic will launch(!) into challenge
over a trivial and harmless thing. 

Whenever that happens, 
I'm right there with you.
 The critic needs to chill.

And even when the issue is actually important, ...

It's certainly not going to win any Christians or Muslims over, when critics speak that way.

Although,

they have no chance of that anyways.

Also, 

 often times,
it's not just atheists giving a Christian some grief. 

People just assume it's always an atheist, because of the false dichotomy of "atheists vs theists".

Pagan, pantheists, deists, etc ... all speak the same way, on occasion.

And they have even more reasons for that;

because their "God's" name (his reputation) is being abused by the religions they mock.

They see humanity being abused under the premise. 

So they're even more sickened by it than atheists are. 

 But let's put this into perspective.

 When does a pagan, or a Native American/Indigenous spritual-ist, etc.

shares one of their beliefs in a Stoicism group?

It pretty much never happens.

Why not?

1. Because they don't look for chances to spread their religious beliefs. 

 Instead, they respect that everyone is on their own journey.  And their concept of "God(s) (and spirits, etc) are also respectful of that. 

2. Even if they did want to say something about their beliefs here, they'd get lots more crap from Christians than they would from atheists. 

In fact, most atheists I know don't have any problem worth mentioning about non-Abrahamic religious or spiritual beliefs. 
They recognize that those people are ON OUR SIDE of the actual war we're in.  

--

In contrast, 

when a Christian promotes their beliefs in this group, 

they are almost always trying to either low-key or aggressively recruit. 

It's even common for them to actually dive into heated religious discussion *in*this*group* 

to threaten people with eternal hellfire. 

They try to be clever with the words they use;
just in case anyone reports them.
But everyone there understands what they're eluding to. 

And WHO gives them any pushback for that?

  Atheists, pagans, deists, etc..

But the peaceful-Christians never ever give the Hellfire fundies any grief for that behavior.

Neither do the other "defenders" of "those poor innocent Christians".

Hellfire Fundamentalists get a free pass.

From who? 

From the very same people who rebuke atheists for standing up to those fundamentalists.

Atheists should "be nice" and "stfu".

But Christians should keep on threatening people, AND spreading a religion that threatens people and F's up our shared world. 

Whenever one of those Christians start promoting their book, and their God, and their beliefs, ... 

they are NOT usually saying "this is just what I believe" ... "as an equal" and "it's just my opinions". 

They're speaking as an AUTHORITY 

over whoever they are speaking to. 

So then if you question them,

you are questioning your GOD. 

If you doubt them, 

you're doubting your God.

If you criticize what they are saying ABOUT God, 

then you are criticizing your GOD. 

So they need to get taken down a peg.

The listener needs to remind the speaker,

and (in some cases) remind their self,

and (in all cases) remind the room

that the speaker is speaking from a false premise of authority.

In that situation, it really is too passive 

to be so soft and diplomatic about it.

Bullies see softness like a wolf interprets another wolf lowering their head and their growl. 

 It just encourages them to keep leveraging for dominance. 

Onlookers are also sometimes wondering if the preacher has taken their rightful place in the social order. 

The preacher sure thinks so.

So it needs to ring out
 loud and clear

that their premise of authority over us 

is:

laughable;

not merely something we're "unconvinced of", or "disinterested in:". 

It needs to get NORMALIZED in society 

for people to laugh at anyone trying to grab for unearned authority 

over people who aren't choosing to place themselves under it. 

Speaking facts and logic isn't enough.

 To make sure it's not enough (in case you haven't noticed) those Christians will not actually engage with the points being made. 

Psychologically and sociologically, 

*in those situations* 

mockery is:
 actually necessary.

 

Nothing shy of that will have nearly as productive an effect.

Any individual can justify just walking away without a word. 

Many "Stoics" would;
because:
 They don't actually understand what's happening.

Unless we want to watch society backslide into/under a social order where fundamentalist religions are AGAIN privileged to a much more extreme extent (causing a massive increase of suffering in our world), ...

 Someone 

needs to stand up to them. 

 It doesn't matter that the aggressors will play the victim.

 It doesn't matter that *some* onlookers will mistake them as such.

There are larger considerations.

It's everyone's civic duty.

If you don't want to, then fine.

But someone needs to.

For the sake of those whom have not yet found their own power,

we must lead the way.

We must each take our turn

standing between the predators and their prey;

not just to protect the vulnerable,
but also to give humanity every opportunity to keep evolving;
and even to keep existing. 

Everything those Christian fundamentalists and moderates say "as Christians" 
is part of a larger attempt to win a sociopolitical war.

If they win that war,..

everyone

will lose 

everything.