A Good Question

Food for thought.

Comments

[Dandereshy]

Amen!

[StardustSurvivor]

Keep religion out of my ponies. We're here for fun, not to have an existential argument about what happens after you die.

[Marsara]

3686252
Then maybe you shouldn't have clicked on this post.

[Snake Staff]

3686252
It's my blog. I'll say what I please.

[Thadius]

I have always found it hilarious to compare Atheism to a religion.

They have their priests, prophets, doctrines, schisms, differing opinions on the same sources, and many of them are blindly faithful without even knowing even the bare basics of their bible (Just like many religious people really).

If you are an atheist and dont know anything about evolution more then the "monkey to man" cartoon chart, its all on pure faith now isnt it?

Always hilarious to do at parties as the inevitable hardcore atheist starts the inevitable proselytizing to convert people to their religion. Man the dumb ones get so angry. The smart ones a bit thoughtful. Good times.

[StardustSurvivor]

3686300 You do have that right, but I would prefer it if religion is kept separate from things I find entertaining such as ponies because I've had too many friends hate each other over arguments about religion.

[Obsidian]

More I love the people who claim to be devout yet act in a manner which is completely antithetical to their own espoused beliefs. I have no problem with people of faith who are genuine and morally centered, but claiming some sort of higher morality simply by paying lip service (and little else) to a given religion is detestable.

[FluorescentRed]

3686352
3686300
You're both making the exact same point, just at different meta levels. Neither of you enjoy religious disagreement (who does?) and would prefer that, in order to avoid such disagreement, religion should only be discussed privately and among those who consented to the discussion to begin with.

Stardust feels that Snake Staff violated this norm by posting a religious statement in what ze feels to be a public space; that is, the Fimfiction board. Furthermore, ze feels that ze has been unfairly exposed to a disagreeable position ze never consented to being exposed to.

Contrarily, Snake Staff feels that zir religious statement was not made in a public space, but a private one ie zir own personal blog. Ze feels that Stardust implicitly consented to being thereby exposed by following said personal blog.

Neither of you could conceivably have seen this coming, because Stardust assumed Snake Staff would treat zir blog as a public space, while Snake Staff assumed anyone following zir blog would treat it as a private space. However, blogs on this site are used interchangeably as public and private spaces, making both assumptions perfectly reasonable. Both of you came to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that the other was starting a religious disagreement unnecessarily, thereby violating the norm.

A (very) imperfect solution is, I believe, for Stardust to follow all of Snake Staff's stories individually and unfollow the blog itself. This is obviously a bad solution, being negative-sum; Stardust has to do more work that ze would otherwise, and Snake Staff loses a follower even though that follower is interested in zir work. Unfortunately, no Schelling point exists.

This concludes an in-depth analysis of a very short, largely inconsequential disagreement on the internet. Why did I write this, exactly?

EDIT: The quotation itself is a destructive meme, cruelly piggybacking on strongly-held convictions. It could have been better stated by rephrasing the content in a strictly secular manner, because the actual statement (a denunciation of low-status behaviour and subsequent comparison to high-status behaviour) isn't actually religious, and would mean the exact same thing if it replaced "church" with "classes", or "Godly bulletin" with "kind words", or anything sufficiently high-status.

Of course, if it had, we wouldn't be discussing it, which means that even if more memes that didn't invoke strongly-held convictions were created, memes that did would still spread farther. In summary, don't call up what you can't put down.

[Xzaves]

I usually find it easy to keep my attention on something that entertains me

[Snake Staff]

3686677
A) What's with the Tumblr-speak? Seriously, "ze" and "zir"? The hell is that?

B) Anyone who would un-follow me purely for being openly and unapologetically Christian is not someone I want following me in the first place.

[FluorescentRed]

3687518
I don't know either of your genders, the gender nonspecific pronoun in English is "it", and I don't like using "they" for non-plurals. I approve of all efforts to add additional pronouns to English, and participate where I can, because more pronouns is worth the small sacrifice. French has a whole bunch - both a singular and plural second-person, for example - and you can do all kinds of neat stuff with it.

While I understand that other people may not share my enthusiasm, the fact remains that my use of nonstandard pronouns raises their market share, even if only by a few hundredths of a percentage point, and bringing us closer to the goal of a singular, gender nonspecific pronoun that isn't "it".

In response to you other point...

I'm disappointed, though not surprised, that you don't consider other people's happiness to be an end unto itself. Irrespective of religiosity, caritas is an admirable quality that I wish more people embraced. That mainstream Christianity has entirely forgotten all seven virtues, though, frankly sucks.

[Snake Staff]

3687571
Among other things, my gender is written right on top, in the description. I'm a man.

Any who, after reading my works and liking them to the extent of following me to see more, would turn around and discount everything simply out of rabid anti-Christianity is not someone I wish to be around. Why would I? A soul with that combination of toxicity and pettiness is unlikely to make good company. If you like what I write but do not share my religion, fine. That's between you and God. You are under no obligation to like my blog posts. But I am not going to censor myself to appease the bigotry of others on my own blog.

tldr: If my being openly Christian upsets you, too bad.

[Thadius]

Dont worry about it and use your blog as you wish, as long as it is within site rules.

I have found that most practitioners of Atheism are more sensitive about their religion then even Scientologists. So they will probably fuss each time, but pay em no mind.

[WrathOfGod519]

But who is gods father? and how do I impress him?

[SolidArc5542]

3687571 Can't argue with that.

[black_arachnia]

I'm Atheist (although I have spiritual beliefs) and I respect this view a lot. I agree more people should be paying attention to the little things in life and to things of real importance to them (family, their personal beliefs, and being nice to others) than consuming vapid and destructive content constantly. I think being surrounded by negative people in turn will turn us into negative people, which will make the world a worse place to live. I think this is also why MLP is such a great show, it teaches good values like honesty, loyalty, generosity, kindness, and laughter (always smiling). If you follow it as a guide, you can improve your life, unlike a lot of other shows that have horrible messages in them that are being sent to kids (Spongebob anyone?).

[Arzoo]

Wait, so if I deny a zombie Jew's existence, he'll tell the sky wizard that I don't exist? I'm not feeling very convinced by this.

Even if I did believe; hell always seemed kind of petty to me. What could anyone possibly do to deserve infinite suffering? Hell existing would require the almost immediate conclusion that god is evil...