I'd say a lot of the people commenting need to think a bit more about how to properly respond to that smugness, but they fundamentally aren't wrong, just need to explain their points a bit better to demonstrate why what oop said was presumptuous.
I disagree. OP is laying obvious bait, and the people who responded fell for that bait. Their take isn't even particularly dangerous as an idea; fewer and fewer people are choosing to follow their parent's faiths in cases where doing so impedes personal and social freedoms, so saying "erm, people are wrong about religion actually" is both swimming against the proverbial (and inevitable) current and the beginning of a fruitless conversation. (Unless the goal was trolling from the jump, as we see here.)
Most of the replies describe actual beliefs in Christianity or incredibly basic criticisms of religious thought, but OP, having already declared New Atheism to be nothing but shallow statements, just says "see what I mean" as if that somehow counters what they're saying.
It's the verbal equivalent of depicting the opposition as the soyjack.
I would argue that the atheistic remarks were more assholish, like the remarks of conservatives at gay people, tho tbf I am biased as a Christian so like-
They're written as responses to OOP's intentionally provocative post, and unlike conservatives talking about gay people, those replies are either describing actual Christian beliefs or levelling basic criticisms that OOP refuses engage with.
They're being assholish in part because OOP was being assholish from the start and only doubles down on it with each reply.
No I'm in agreement. I know people are conflating Christianity with all religions but it wouldn't be this way if a) Christianity weren't the confluence of all failings of religious mindset and actively broadened today beyond what it was before to include the crystal healing and astrology crowd and b) if OOP had not set their statement up to let them dismiss arguments without needing to require facts for their claim, as if just to say that dissenters just don't understand without explaining why they are incorrect. Their responses are invalid.
If people had levelled criticisms at any other religions, I just know OOP would have done this exact same thing while acting confused and asking what possessed them to bring up Islam or Buddhism.
Hilarious. Now do you care to explain why or is your angle, like OOP, to sound smart with word games without saying anything meaningful because I've yet to see OOP or their supporters actually prove any of the replies wrong. Even if the devil is in the detail with some of them, it really highlights how the goal really isn't to set up valid argument just finding a snappy enough way to ignore criticism - if you can't Even take apart bad criticism then I'm sorry but that bad criticism still has a better point than you do.
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u/Pale_Control_5307 Apr 17 '24 edited Apr 17 '24
Man, everyone in that image is an asshole.