Hopeful Monsters

Do theistic members of II perceive non-believers as outsiders?

Do atheists and non-theists out there ever feel you’re in some sense an outsider?

NOT solely because of the obvious point - that you might feel you’re in a minority and sometimes treated differently by theistic co-workers, family, friends and others to whom religion is important –

- but also because by being an atheist or non-theist you have rejected something humankind obviously finds important sociologically and socially.

You stand outside and apart by neither sharing or embracing a common and prevalent aspect of human outlook.

Any thoughts?

emotional

Truth isn't decided by a majority vote, it's decided by evidence. The majority who believes in a god or gods are still wrong unless they bring evidence.

I feel no loss whatever in disbelieving in gods, toothfairies or invisible pink unicorns.







(for those who have wondered about the change: I'm now a recovering atheist)

Volker.Doormann

"When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
(Jiddu Krishnamurti) "

Darth Dane

Nice quote, indeed before we are americans, europeans, iraqians, japanese or whatever, we are human beings.

It is like the surface and the depth





DD - Love & Laughter

Peter Kirby

In the context of this discussion board, the group that may be outsiders are the theists.

best,
Peter Kirby

Hopeful Monsters

Peter, thanks -

- I guess my point is about out there in everyday life, not in cyber exchanges on iidb.org, but in the workplace, family gatherings, at weddings, at Christmas, in a bar surrounded by theists etc etc -

- do non-believers feel they are outsiders because of the reasons I set out (or maybe because of reasons I've falied to spot?)

demoninho

Holland is mainly atheist/agnostic, I get surprised when I actually do meet a christian. They are sort of rare except in some more isolated rural parts, so the theists are the outsiders.

Peter Kirby

To be an outsider, it is not enough to have a difference of opinion. A woman who supports the right to choose is not an outsider among a group of pro-lifers...until she has an unwanted pregnancy, and her family strongly disapproves of her. Or perhaps she just gets into a heated argument and runs up against general condemnation. She has become ostracized.

In my family, I am not an outsider as an atheist. My family accepts that fact and still loves me. So that rules out gatherings, weddings, and Christmas--Christmas is thoroughly secular, and the intent of a wedding is usually mostly secular, even if it happens in a Catholic church (the last one I attended, the groom was not Catholic). I am not uncomfortable hearing a sermon on the wedding of Cana, joking that something always goes wrong at a wedding! So that leaves being at a workplace and being in a bar. I don't have a workplace. I see the bar as mostly secular--libations are plain old fun! So, I am mostly not an "outsider" in real life.

I am an outsider on TheologyWeb.

best,
Peter Kirby

Godless Wonder

I will answer this part anyhow. When I was in 8th grade, our science teacher once asked the class if anyone knew what someone who didn't believe in god was called. I knew damn well what they were called, because I was one, but I wasn't going to raise my hand, because I didn't want anybody to know. Noboby raised their hand, in a class of 30 8th graders, nobody knew, or was willing to admit that they knew the word "atheist". Hard not to feel like an outsider.
Well, sometimes I feel like I'm one of the few who are not insane. Religion really appears to be a kind of (mostly) benign mental disability to me, a kind of blind spot people seem to have where they can't separate fantasy from reality, confusing areas of knowledge which are unreachable with a license to accept a completely fabricated "truth" on the say-so of some authority figure.

Rational BAC

I think you gave up too easily.

Just curious though-------what was the deciding factor? Something somebody posted on this forum or just a general change of heart?