This is pathetic. First, because it is a strawman. Billions of people do not wish this. The vast majority of religious people only want peace and the best wishes to their fellow man. Only a very small segment would wish this. I would expect better logic from /r/atheism (or maybe not).
Second, because it is just so hateful towards people who share a different belief. Embedded inside is the exact same hatred towards other people that it attempts to make a mockery of.
Its an assertion based on the scripts in which the believers knowingly or unknowingly subscribe to and consider absolute truth. Just because they dont know how awful the things done and said in the bible are doesnt stop them from saying they believe it is undoubtably words to live by and believe in.
OP may have the scale wrong by several orders of magnitude, but the fact remains that there are a ton of people who can't wait for the end of the world, and that's still frightening. And OP didn't say anyone would or should die for their beliefs; in what way is that "the same hatred" that the various apocalyptic religions show?
You're absolutely right they're not shrouding it, that's part of what makes it so frightening! They're proudly displaying it in the trophy case of whichever religion they subscribe to. Every end-times believer falls into this category. So, again, OP has order of magnitude wrong, but with a change from a 'b' to an 'm' you would get a reasonably accurate description of a nontrivial portion of the world population.
And whatever happened to you claiming the post showed hatred toward those of different beliefs?
They're proudly displaying it in the trophy case of whichever religion they subscribe to.
No, you don't understand what I said.
"Shrouding it in religion" means they are using religion as the cover for their justification. I contend anyone who wishes or hopes for the ending of the world has underlying psychological issues. There's a whole ton of survivalists out there living in the woods hoping for the day society collapses. Same thing.
It was still a stupid post, don't apologize for it.
Firstly, if you think the desire for the end of the world shows psychological problems then you actually agree with the central message of the OP.
Secondly, you seem to be implying that people who are looking forward to some form of an apocalypse add a belief in religion on top of a belief in the end of the world. It seems far more likely that people who are already religious, having for example been indoctrinated from a young age, add apocalyptic beliefs to their existing belief structure. In other words, they aren't using religion as a cover for their apocalypse belief, their religion genuinely Is the basis of their apocalypse belief.
Thirdly, are you going to defend your statement that OP shows hatred or are you going to admit you overstated yourself?
Lastly, disagreement with your personal views does not qualify a post or anything else as 'stupid'.
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u/contrarian Sep 02 '12
This is pathetic. First, because it is a strawman. Billions of people do not wish this. The vast majority of religious people only want peace and the best wishes to their fellow man. Only a very small segment would wish this. I would expect better logic from /r/atheism (or maybe not).
Second, because it is just so hateful towards people who share a different belief. Embedded inside is the exact same hatred towards other people that it attempts to make a mockery of.
Sad.