When Religious People Accuse Us of Being Religious, As An Insult

September 18, 2011 By 8 Comments

Don’t you hate it when anti-atheist pro-faith religionists ridiculously claim, as a put down, that atheism (or evolution) is a dogma or a faith or a religion or that it treats something as holy and as its “god”, etc.? Hank amusingly sums up the absurdity of such attempts to defend dogmatic faith-based religions from atheists and scientists:

you’re basically saying “The stuff you believe is just as stupid as the stuff I believe. You’re making the same mistake I make.”

It’s like yelling over the fence at your neighbor, “Hey, dog owner! Your dog SHITS IN THE YARD!! Just like mine does!”

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Your Thoughts?

Filed Under: Atheism, Hilarious, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, New Atheism, Religulous, Religulous 8 Comments
  • Daniel Schealler

    This is something my friends do to me all the time, but only because they know it winds me up.

    They also go out of their way to misuse the word ‘irony’ for similar reasons.

    …

    My friends are assholes.

  • http://mildlyamusing.thecomicseries.com/ AaronJ

    I GUESS what they’re trying to say is that we’re hypocrites for berating their blind faith while we supposedly have blind faith ourselves? Or something?

    • http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers Camels With Hammers

      Right, that’s part of it but they also imply that our merely having dogma or faith or a god or whatever itself proves us wrong, and that’s what’s so stupefying about it to me.

    • Daniel Schealler

      Because only their religion is the right one, you big silly.

    • http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers Camels With Hammers

      ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

      now I feel foolish.

  • http://cafeeine.wordpress.com Cafeeine

    I’ve long considered that this is an attempt to fit atheism in a category they already have means to deal with, i.e ‘other religions’. Any successful religion will have rhetorical and dogmatic tools in its toolset to deal with the existence of other religions. The idea promoted by the Gnu atheists, that of critical evaluation of religious claim cannot be addressed by these means. Take faith, for example. The religious have means to account for faith in a wrong religion (demons, deception, ignorance). They can’t account for a mindset that eschews faith for evidence. If they convince themselves that atheists hold faith of some sort, they can give themselves license to disregard anything the atheist has to say against it. The exercise is a means to take faith off the debating table, and once faith is allowed, the theists can’t lose, in their mind.

  • http://nwrickert.wordpress.com/ Neil Rickert

    They do that, because they are trying to convince themselves that their religion is not the BS that they suspect it might be.

  • Rob

    In multiple comboxes I have pointed out this hilarious trope. It is quite obvious that the believer is using the accusation as an insult. They tell me that I have faith, or a religion, or adhere to dogma.

    So they are using things they supposedly value as insults! It’s delicious irony.

    Do you ever see skeptics attempting to insult believers by saying they have good critical thinking skills? A skeptic would never use something he values as an insult.

    Deep down, the believer knows that faith is something to be ashamed of. He’s right.