I know this is hardly a surprise but I just caught another instance and thought I’d bring it up. There are a lot of people out there who simply cannot keep their emotions in check. They clearly don’t even know that they’re doing it. Exactly why is that?
So there was a discussion going on about religion and why religion is so inherently troublesome. In most such discussions, you will get people, even those self-described as atheists, who just want the religious to be left alone because challenging their beliefs might make them sad.
Yeah, so what? Because these discussions are never about feelings, they are about facts. It’s what religion does, not what religion makes people feel. I’m not sure why so many people can’t get that through their heads.
So the discussion in question causes someone to pop up and say something about Buddhist monks who are pacifists, as though that shows that Buddhism is factually correct or non-harmful. It doesn’t. People can be pacifists without religion too, the presence of any religious ideology doesn’t make someone automatically peaceful or violent. Besides, we point out, the discussion is whether or not the existence of irrational beliefs cause people to behave in irrational ways, which, clearly, they do. It’s not even just religion to blame for this, people have all kinds of stupid reactions once their emotions get out of whack. This person was just going off the rails and talking about something entirely separate. It’s great that there are peaceful Buddhist monks. That doesn’t make Buddhism true.
It’s just that this person kept going on and on and on, making the same claims, saying that religion makes people happy, saying that religion can have a positive effect on people’s lives. Big deal, I respond. It can also make them miserable, it can make them intolerant and intolerable and none of that actually shows that the beliefs they ascribe these changes to, it doesn’t prove any of it is true. Truth matters. Feelings do not.
I also noticed as time went on that this guy was getting increasingly emotionally agitated, as though the fact that people weren’t looking at his ideas emotionally was somehow invalidating his personal worth. Now that’s a pathetic way to look at things to begin with, but I suggested that because this was a rational discussion, not an emotional one, he might want to bow out because he was unlikely to get anywhere in his current state.
And he came back screaming “I AM NOT BEING EMOTIONAL!” Yeah, sure you’re not pal. That’s why you’re screaming impotently. Then he went back to repeating, ad nauseum, all of the things that he’d already been told were irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It was about then that I decided to stop talking to him because he wasn’t contributing anything of substance and went back to having the discussion at hand.
This is just something that we see constantly these days. It’s not just religion, politics is a real mess because people can’t just talk facts without forcing their own feelings into the mix. It’s why we see so often people demanding that their emotions be taken seriously, or else. That’s the very basis of cancel culture, after all. It’s the very core of the refusal of the far left to permit free speech for anyone they don’t agree with. It’s why they’re such an absurd joke.
The world isn’t all about your feelings. Adults can look at the world through rational eyes. They can actually be concerned whether a given proposition is actually demonstrably true. I know these people don’t care a bit but that’s what makes them so ludicrous. Grow up, learn how to set aside your feelings and realize that everything doesn’t have to serve your brain chemistry.
If you can’t do that, seek professional help.
There is a level of irony in this post.
If you see the comments, the user you’re talking with says that one shouldn’t make fun of well intentioned people who do no harm who happen to be wrong. They continue by saying that these positions have arguments for them, and being convinced that you’re always right is an epistemic vice.
You replied that people don’t deserve your respect. You say despite the good they do, you don’t care. And you end by saying that this person is responding emotionally.
But they’re not – they’ve stated two points and then you’ve thrown an irrelevant hissy fit. You’ve called them impotent here, but what is more impotent than running away to post about them on a blog no one reads? You’ve reacted emotionally both in that comment section and here!
They keep writing that we should show respect to those trying to do good and doubly so if they actually do good. You say that this is just a justification for their religion. But they’ve said they’re an atheist, and have never once argued that Buddhism is true. Instead, they’re arguing for a humility in the face of arguments and respect. At no point in the thread do you address what they’ve said, but you do continue to hurl insults at them.
In this thread, you look like the one reacting emotionally and not them!
They write another 400 or so words. They explain their position in more depth, and attack the idea that they’re being overly emotional. You respond “there goes those emotions again” – but as they correctly point out you don’t address anything they’ve said. They’re directly attacking your claim and expanding on their own. You wrote a lazy sentence a few times and then refused to justify it. It’s pathetic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/religiousfruitcake/comments/ogagm3/the_future_of_this_subreddit/h4q1ry9/
And now let’s talk about what you talk about in the blog post. You say here that you talk about religion can make people miserable. You don’t. That’s just a lie.
You say that religion making people happy doesn’t make it true. That’s true, but no one has said otherwise. The person you’re talking to is an atheist.
You never say that they should leave because they are overly emotional. Instead, you just call them emotional. At this point, they’ve asked you why you think they’re emotional and given a reason to think they’re not. You ignored that.
You said you went back to the discussion at hand. But you didn’t. You didn’t write anything else to anyone else in that thread after you stopped replying to them. And you stopped repyling to them after they said “You haven’t engaged with anything I’m saying.”
I know that you write fiction. But this blogpost isn’t just fiction: it’s filled with downright lies that misrepresent how you acted and the positions you engaged with. It is typical of conservatives in the US: they twist the truth to paint everyone apart from them as hysterical but doing any research shows them as people unable to engage meaningfully in debate.
If you had the capacity, I would say you should feel ashamed of this.
I’m also curious about this comment getting approved.
Because none of that is relevant. I don’t care how many good things people do, often for bad reasons, that doesn’t excuse the bad they do. Adolph Hitler loved dogs. He had a German Shepherd named Blondi. Just because he was really nice to his dog, that doesn’t make up for any of the evil crap that he did. It doesn’t matter how many dogs he was nice to, it wouldn’t matter how many little old ladies he helped across the street, the red in his ledger is never going away. In so many cases, it doesn’t matter what you do, it matters why you do it and Hitler was indefensible.
The same can be said for, I think, a lot of Christians. They might work in shelters, they might give away food, but in most cases, their intent isn’t to help people, it’s to try to brainwash them with their imaginary friend. “We’re only going to give you a sandwich if you listen to our sermon.” We just don’t need that kind of charity in the world.
It is undeniably true that the very existence of atheists can and does make a lot of theists sad. You can watch hundreds of videos on YouTube of theists whining that atheists are attacking them by their very existence. There is call after call after call on shows like The Atheist Experience where Christians call in and complain that they feel personally attacked because the show exists in the first place. Just because that doesn’t apply to you, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to others and there is a ton of evidence that says you’re just wrong. In the end, I don’t give a shit what you believe, I care what you can prove and the religious are really terrible at that. They’ve got pure emotion and zero evidence for anything in their heads. It’s why my YouTube channel has close to 800 videos on it that debunk the religious at every turn. You might not agree but again, it doesn’t matter what you think, it matters what you can prove and we both know, you can’t prove a damn thing.
The only one who should be ashamed are the irrational, the ones who can’t make a coherent argument and run on nothing but emotion.
And you ought to get your entitlement problem under control because nobody, absolutely nobody, deserves to get their comments approved. This is not a democracy. However, almost all of them do, when I even notice there’s a comment in the queue, except for the spammers and the scammers and the like. I don’t have to respect you or anyone else unless you’ve earned it and you earn it by not being an ass and by being able to adequately back up your statements with objectively demonstrable fact. Can you? I suppose that remains to be seen.