this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago (4 children)

My grandma used to work at a Catholic charity to distribute food for people without resources.

There were a few Muslims who requested food from there, and they always complained that the meat wasn't halal. Their very Catholic response was that they treated everyone the same, and weren't going to change the food they offered just because some Muslims were complaining.

Then again, quite very Catholicly, they didn't offer any meat during Lent to anyone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

I just treat that shit like an allergy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you are getting help from someone you shouldn't complain about their preferences.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

In my country they don't pay property taxes, and often use charity as a justification. So it's debatable if their help with strings attached is a net positive.

Give me your wallet and I'll buy you an acceptable dinner with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I don't get your point. They give food away for free and they choose what and when. What's wrong with that, exactly? That their choices correlate with their religion? Well, duh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

The story is illustrative of the failure of private charities as public institutions.

We've got two sets of dietary restrictions, one of which the Catholics disregard and the other they faithfully apply. This makes their charity functionally inaccessible to the chunk of their neighborhood that's Muslim.

This recalls another common instance in church charities, wherein recipients are pressured into prayer before receiving aid. As many of these charities - particularly in the wake of the Bush 43 era "Faith Based Initiatives" charity privatization initiative - obtain their aid from the federal government, what you have is secular aid filtered through sectarian institutions as a means of cultivating particular ideological views.

What’s wrong with that, exactly?

Set aside the generic legalist "Seperation of Church and State" 1st amendment guidelines, wherein residents aren't obligated to hold religious views in order to access government services.

The fundamental problem with a state sponsored religious charity is that it polarizes the community into economic haves and have-nots, based on religious beliefs. And that foments discord, bigotry, and ultimately violence.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They're imposing their customs based on dogma on vulnerable people with little to no capacity to choose, with no larger basis than "it's what I was indoctrinated to believe". It's doubly shameful because this is a country that has been trying to unshackle itself from the legacy of a Fascist Catholic dictatorship, the Inquisition, and the forced expulsion/conversion of Jews and Muslims.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Halal/kosher is basically a "farm to table" supply chain requirement. Especially if you're relying on donations it wouldn't be simple to source. I wouldn't expect any charity really to refuse supplies or try to source a 'duplicate' set of supplies for a minority of the people they serve. If they were in a Muslim majority area it would make sense to go to the effort.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The donations they took was money. They bought the food directly from the supermarket, which does have halal items here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Ah.

Yeah that's kind of a dick move.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Like I get not providing food you disapprove of. Food Not Bombs is supposed to be vegan food, but also when helping people, make reasonable accommodations to ensure you’re meeting needs they have. Haram meat given to a Muslim is useless, you’re better off giving that meat to someone else. No matter how many cheeseburgers you give a vegan, you won’t fill their stomach.

In fact this is one of the issues with charity as a concept. Many who do it expect gratitude for whatever they give and see requests for something that would help better or to stop giving things that will only go to waste as being a choosy beggar. When aiding people you need to ask them what they need, otherwise any help you provide is accidental.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Which religion said I can’t have sex with an ice cream cone in a park?

Because that cops was an asshole.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The Bible even says it's better for a man to put his seed in an ice cream cone than it is to let it fall to the ground. Though they may have just been talking about the ice cream cone. 🤔

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

What’s funny is that’s not why god smoked the jackass.

He just didn’t want to give his brother an heir. For the record his brother was such a massive jackass that even the abrahamic god couldn’t stand him.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

"my religion forbids me from talking to someone who has ice cream unless i also have ice cream, so shut your fucking mouth."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I do have an amount of pity for people with extreme religious views. I remember talking to an atheist friends extremely religious mother who was trying to come to to terms with the fact her daughter was going to go to hell one day.

Imagine walking through the park and seeing someone about to eat an ice cream that you know has a powerful psychoactive substance in that will kick in after few years that tricks the persons brain into believing they're being tortured until their brain turns to mush.

I absolutely don't agree with people spreading their religious doctrine, especially when unwelcome, but many of those people could be considered victims to that choice and don't deserve to be antagonised.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

WHY ARENT YOU BEING TOLERANT?

/s

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why is Al Sharpton telling people not to eat ice cream?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Whatever religion he's in, he's probably the only member.

🍦 🍨

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I get the sentiment, but if you eat ice cream on Mondays you are just evil. Ice cream clearly is a Tuesday treat. /s

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

It’s is illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket on Sundays in the state of New York

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

nah, this is how vegan treat others

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

car-centric infrastructure destroys cities and residential areas, you're stupid if you think r/fuckcars is relevant to this meme. most people on r/fuckcars have a car

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/uggv41/on_deflating_tires/

Many of them believe they should deflate the tires of people they consider "car heads". The theme here is forcing others to live how you want them to based on your personal values rather than letting people be.

Seems pretty relevant to me

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Generally when tires are deflated it's people who are in ultra expensive and dangerous SUVs which are basically just killing machines and nothing else. But people deflating tires is a very small amount in the community regardless, although I could see people deflating the tires of those who endanger others very realistic.

Yank tanks (unreasonably gigantic and dangerous SUVs which are almost always American, named so because other countries have started being infected by them and now the rest of the world is mad at us) are just bad. Owning one is bad, using one is especially bad, they only exist to be the bigger vehicle so they can "win" car crashes and crush pedestrians like a tank (and because they cna bypass emissions regulations). It isn't a matter of "I want to live this way so you have to live this way", it's "you're endangering the lives of everyone around you beyond a tolerable amount". So no, it's not relevant at all.

Honestly your argument kind of sounds like someone against no-smoking zones because "let people smoke, just because you don't want to doesn't mean they can't". Second hand smoke endangers the health of a lot of people around you, it has nothing to do with other peoples' not wanting to smoke – same goes with SUVs, they're one of the largest causes of death that isn't a chronic health problem, they are a danger. If smoking at, say, a middle school were legal, and someone did it with kids around, I'd have no issue with stealing their smokes and chucking them into a trash can, even if what they were doing wasn't illegal it's still immoral. Even if it caused them serious issues and withdrawal and stuff, what they're doing endangers others and I'm fine if someone takes it into their own hands to put a stop to it. You can apply that same logic to yank tanks.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Funny you justify these actions on this post by arguing morality.

To a religious person, the threat of creating an immoral society is worse then say smoking or polluting. The soul is eternal and corruption would result in greater then a lifetime of consequence whereas your examples do not.

Point I'm arguing isn't to say one is right or wring but can you understand your arguing from the same concern as the person in the meme above.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Religious beliefs aren't real, they're delusions, and being gay or some other random "sin" isn't at all comparable to what I'm speaking of. Cars are the #1 cause of death in the US other than health complications, most of those SUVs, they are demonstratably extremely harmful to society even if you don't consider how their dominance destroys our infrastructure design, increases stress, and how they pollute the Earth a ton.

It's silly to cater to people who believe in Christianity or something similar when we have actual problems that we have proven solutions for, like getting rid of car-dependent infrastructure. Compared to say, being gay or uttering the words "oh my God", which according to Christian belief are equally as bad as murder, slavery, and rape or even worse than it on the sin scale. If a religion believes in a hell, especially when believing in an omniscient and omnipotent future-seeing God, it's worth immediately disregarding everything from.

Even entertaining the idea that the Christian ideas of morality have any basis in reality, especially putting it on the same level as actual science, is unbelievable.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Religious beliefs aren’t real

That is your opinion and not shared by others.

The point isn't that you have to do anything. You theme here is that you live your life and respect others living their own life. You have argued as if its a zero sum situation where you can force your belief on others and you refuse to accept that allows others to do the same.

Religion is very real to some people and not respecting that can absolutely lead to the same attitudes being presented in the above. It leads to one group initializing the other and acting like they know better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It is not an "opinion". It is fact.

Either way, religion has no real life basis, it's not scientific. You can, however, use science to observe the mass murdering of children, destruction of cities, plowing down thousands of neighbourhoods to build highways, caused by SUVs and dependence on cars. The point is that SUV drivers do not respect life because SUVs exist to, and are popular solely to, be the bigger tank in car crashes, have a high hood so you kill pedestrians when you run them over, and endanger the lives of others for your own perceived (and fake) safety, while also blasting out a ton of pollution while you're at it.

If religion is real to someone, they are crazy. Just as we shouldn't entertain the delusions of a schizophrenic as real, we shouldn't entertain the delusions of religious people as real. What matters is the actual observable scientific facts we have available to us, which supports things like ending car-centric infrastructure and not using SUVs and trucks if you don't need them and are just doing errands the city in them like a loser. Civilization's completely fucked by car emissions and SUVs have a higher pedestrian killcount than a hundred 9/11s but hey man gotta drive my kids to soccer practice in a tank, and besides the pastor said the rapture was imminent or something anyways.

Going to an atheism community or science-based community and saying "but religion might be real though, their bigotry is equally as valid as actual facts/science" and expecting anyone to take that seriously at all is crazy.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What matters is the actual observable scientific facts

This is a centuries old debate about empiricism vs rationalism. Take some time to learn about it. Ultimately though, science has limits. One thing I often hear is that science can't prove anything; it can only disprove things. The point I'm making is that we can't prove religion is not real, nor can we prove it is real. Yet, people believe it to be real. Likewise, you can show measurable things like deaths caused by cars. However, that does not justify imposing your will on other people. What are you measuring those deaths against? Given that almost every person owns a car and drives daily, is the issue moot? Am I wrong for driving a vehicle if another person gets into an accident?

The internet is one of the biggest tools used by sex traffickers and pedophiles. Should you smash your computer? Does it make it okay for you to smash another person’s computer who has nothing to do with any of that?

Science has limits. It can't solve questions that do not have measurable or empirical evidence. It can't provide answers to moral, ethical, and existential questions that are deeply personal and subjective. These questions often require us to draw on philosophy, religion, and personal values to find meaning and make decisions.

Things that are not measurable or lack empirical evidence are not necessarily any less real than anything else. You can't prove why two people are in love. You can measure process and hormones in the brain and body. You can't scientifically explain why. You can't measure consciousness so is that not real? Are we just brains inside a jar floating in space hallucinating all of this?

Hell trusting that science is the be all end all is a belief itself.

All that to say that taking the position that you have a right to tell others how to live is an asshole position. Sometimes its necessary but its easy to go too far even if you think you're doing good.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

All that to say that taking the position that you have a right to tell others how to live is an asshole position.

Yeah no not at all when they literally only exist to endanger the lives of others. This is like saying it's an "asshole position" that neo-Nazis and the KKK can't rally and fire guns in public spaces because they have a right to live how they want. After all, they totally aren't a danger to literally everyone who's not a right-wing white guy, they're just living how they want. Although you apparently listen to Joe Rogan so I wouldn't be surprised if you are a neonazi collaborator.

"Science has its limits" is no reason to entertain seemingly schizophrenic beliefs in the divine. We have actual facts, they have their fake God.

If you think "communication devices can be used by pedophiles" is anywhere comparable to "this specific type of vehicle is literally killing thousands of children and polluting the environment and is one of the greatest threats to you in your everyday life" then you're unable to be reasoned with. They have a choice to literally just use a sedan or even a van or something that isn't superbly effective at murdering pedestrians, but they choose to blow a hundred thousand on a fancy orphan-crushing tank.

Also...

You can't prove why two people in love... You can't scientifically explain why.

YOU LITERALLY CAN DO EXACTLY THIS. This is a matter of technological advancement and the fact that human brains have an inconceivable amount of complex data in them for our current observation methods and have a lot of plasticity, not whether it's possible. You can already use biochemistry/neurology to accurately predict this kind of stuff, even exact responses to environmental stimuli, in some simpler creatures. It is scientifically possible to do the same thing for humans, it is just physics/chemistry. You're gonna need a lot better argument than "[obviously complex thing in science] isn't solved yet so science and religion are equally as rational". It's like saying we shouldn't trust mathematics because we haven't solved the Riemann Hypothesis. We already have real, reproducable proof that physics, chemistry, and all that are objective and accurate to reality and can be used to accurately tell the future, even if we haven't completely solved them. There is no such thing for religion.

You also can't measure "consciousness" because "consciousness" doesn't mean anything. It's a completely subjective word that wildly changes based on who you ask. There is no "having consciousness" or "not having consciousness" or "having 50% consciousness" or something. It's a ways we try to think of our perception/responses to the environment, which you can measure.

"Rationalism" doesn't mean believing in shit some guys made up vaguely based on other shit guys made up a long time ago and saying it can't be any more absurd than science. You wanna know what Rationalism is?

a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response.

And you wanna know what empiricism is?

view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.

Neither of these are fond of religious garbage. They are both ways of interpreting science, and they aren't a complete dichotomy because scientists use both. Religion is just emotional, illogical, completely subjective, and not based in reality.

Schizophrenic people may often believe the delusions in their head are real. It's excusable because it's not really their fault, but I can't excuse religious people for the same thing because they choose to believe this garbage, sometimes even well into adulthood. It is irrelevant that you think it is real or that schizophrenic people and people with dementia think their delusions are real. Or that children think the tooth fairy and santa are real. That doesn't make it any more up for consideration to actually rational people. The logical conclusions from data are far more important than the make-believe of the Pope.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Silly strawman caricature of reasonable argumentation.

"Well I think its OK for me to beat my wife, so you shouldn't mind me doing so."

Quite different in this case, yet it follows a similar logic. Things can unaffect you diferectly, yet still be wrong.

Using the obscene ice cream example is a unsophisticated attempt to discredit this line of reasoning.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ok so let's use a real example. Many Christians are anti-LGBT based on their interpretations of the Bible and their moral beliefs.

So should we ban homosexuality?

Also your argument is just as flawed. The average person has a moral objection to domestic violence. This comic is referring to when there's a difference between the average person's moral beliefs and the religious ones, especially the radical zealot's belief

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So should we ban homosexuality?

No because its not morally wrong.

In the case of abortion the conservatives have some strong arguments even though I am in favour of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

No because its not morally wrong

Morals are subjective. In someone else's mind homosexuality could be immoral, and this has been the case historically.

In civilized world laws are not (or should not) be based on "morality", but to ensure level and fair playing ground for all people. This includes not restricting persons way of expressing their sexuality as long as it doesn't negatively affect others (ie. Rape, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc)

Of course we don't live in that kind of utopia but I hope we're getting better slowly

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

“Well I think its OK for me to beat my wife, so you shouldn’t mind me doing so.”

  • Husband: I consent

  • Jesus: I consent

  • Wife: I don't

Isn't there someone you forgot to ask?

Things can unaffect you diferectly, yet still be wrong.

What would you consider a hospital staffer refusing to provide medical aid to a woman in the middle of a deadly miscarriage, because the hospital administrator is afraid of being sued or arrested for performing an abortion?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago

What would you consider a hospital > > staffer refusing to provide medical aid to a woman in the middle of a deadly miscarriage, because the hospital administrator is afraid of being sued or arrested for performing an abortion?

In that situation it is clearly wrong not to help, because in the case of a miscarriage the fetus would die also presumably. And many Christians would agree.

But for cases of no risk to the mother the morality of facilitating an abortion can be more dubious. The conservatives certainly have a strong position, even if I disagree with it.