Being A “Nice Atheist” Is Annoying

I’ve gotten some heat for things I’ve said about atheists expressing anger. Some think I’m too nice and others say I’m too harsh. So I thought I’d clarify my ideas on the subject.

Videos referenced:

Al Jazeera Did A Story About Me (Ex-Muslim and I Respond)

“Do atheists exist?” This Christian’s insulting answer

Creationist Kent Hovind Challenges Me, I Respond

Why Christian Responses to Deconstruction Are So Predictable

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[GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic]

I knew I’d think of another point only after posting this. I want to clarify that I don’t encourage empathy or compassion just as a way for atheists to navigate negative stereotypes. Some will stereotype you no matter what, and some won’t. As I’ve explored in my videos about Satanism, there are different approaches to dealing with stereotypes and not all of them entail attempting to defy stereotypes in every possible way.

I encourage empathy and compassion for the sake of the atheist just as much as for the believer. Maybe more for the atheist’s sake, actually. This approach isn’t about making converts for atheism either.

For the reasons I laid out in the video, managing anger carefully can help you live a healthier life and manage conflict more effectively. Some will still stereotype you even if you do this, but I think you’ll be better off regardless.

[HassanRadwan]

I totally relate. I've been told that "I'm not like those other ex-Muslims - I believe you will come back to Islam." and some vehement anti-Muslim critics have accused me of Taqiyya and being a secret Muslim lol. Theramin Trees made a great video about this sort of cognitive dissonance. Here's an excellent quote:

"Imagine we’ve been taught to believe all members of group A are evil. One day, a friend we’ve always known to be a good person reveals he’s a member of group A. This arouses dissonance because our experience contradicts our belief. We can reduce this dissonance in a number of ways. If we’re not hugely invested in the belief we might opt for method one:

1. Adjust our belief. We might for instance change it to: Not all members of group A are evil.

If we are equally invested in our belief and the friendship we might try to preserve both by using method two:

2. Denial. We might refuse to believe our friend is a true member of group A. Granting him special exemption because… well, he’s just not like those other folks!

If we’re more invested in the belief than the friendship we might go for method three:

3. Select confirming information. Here we cherry-pick information consistent with our belief and ignore information that contradicts it. Any flaws in our friends behaviour or attitudes can be turned against him while his goodness is ignored.

But sometimes our response to dissonance is so horrendously distorted that it makes us almost invulnerable to further dissonance, reducing our need for avoidance. For example, say we look for evidence that our friend is evil, but can’t find any. What if, time after time, we’re confronted with good. How can we possibly preserve our belief that all members of group A are evil now? Well all is not lost, we have method four:

4. Repackaging. Believing that no member of group A could possibly be good we could repackage our experience of our friend’s goodness as something it’s not. We might tell ourselves he was only pretending to be good. It was all an act. A deception. And isn’t that the most insidious evil of all!? The evil that disguises itself as good. The wolf in sheep’s clothing.

We’ve now put our friend in a no-win situation. Even his goodness has become evidence of his evil. Now we don’t even have to avoid him. Anything he does — good or bad — confirms our belief."

- Theramin Trees

[rondaherriott]

I don’t think I can ever stop being angry about the church telling me I had to forgive the man who SA’ed me as a child. He didn’t have to do anything, but I had to forgive and allow him into my life or else I was in sin. I will always be angry about that.

[wyo]

For religious ppl its ok for themselves to be able to get angry but if we atheists get angry than we r called “angry atheists” such hypocrites!!

[adamgragg]

This is EXACTLY what happened with my friend who recently past away from brain cancer. He spent most of his adult life as a doctor, treating people all over the world, in some of the poorest places in the world...essentially being the medical missionary that everyone thought he would become... except he was also a full blown atheist. In fact, he once told me over sushi (a tradition we had whenever he came back home for a visit) that he didn't think he would have been able to do the things he did for others if he stayed in the evangelical world he was born into. When he died, his parents had his funeral at his high school church, just sh*ting all over his memory and who he had become. They could NOT bring themselves to believe that anyone who could live so selflessly, coupled with coming face to face with his mortality could be a non-believer... so they turned his funeral into a massive lie. They held on so tightly to dogma and stereotypes they threw out who he really was in favor of holding onto a facade. Now he's gone and no one will hear anything other than those lies they created in the name of Jesus

[iamcrazyforkittycats]

Sometimes yes. You need to get angry especially if religion is used to take away your rights.

[rebeccaboudreau]

So true! 😂
My sister is convinced that once I announced I wasn’t Christian that I’m now full of hate. She didn’t think that before she knew 🙄

[JosephFuckinStalin]

The thing that frustrates me the most about this specific topic is how Christians think they own kindness and charitability. Like they think Jesus literally came up with these ideas or something

[elycanada]

I told a christian coworker i was an atheist and he Congratulated me because he “never would have known”! Like good job for not being the evil monster I imagined

[roc]

I had this EXACT scenario play out today. A coworker I know who is extremely religious, found out that I was agnostic. For the last 3 weeks, every time I interact with them, they ALWAYS try to shove a religious conversation down my throat. I went to the store on my day off to grab some things and she was there and said that the reason we were both in the store at the same time was because it was “divine intervention”. I lost it. I told her that, before I took the job where she and I work now, I worked as a social worker for over a decade. Worked with dozens of young adults who got kicked out of their households, because they either did not conform to the church of their parents, or came out as gay or came out as Atheist or anything and everything in between. To watch these young adults suffer needlessly while their family and sometimes friends shun them is a life changing experience that paved the way for my own agnostic belief. I told her that, even though SHE might disagree with that and wouldn’t do that, her holy book would back her up 1000% in doing so. I also told her that the unmistakable unjustifiable swagger she would do when she would tell me that I should think about what I was saying, OR ELSE said EVERYTHING I needed to know about religious people. That, she could go and do whatever she wanted in life and all she had to do was ask her invisible friend to forgive her and she gets to go to the external theme park. But, even if I lived to be 1000 and cure cancer and end poverty and was thought of by my friends, family and those who knew me as a good and righteous man, it doesn’t matter because, according to her, I will be DESTINED to hellfire for eternity. That is just beyond dehumanizing. It’s beyond inhumane to say or even imply such a thing to someone.

So yeah brother, I get how being a “nice” Agnostic or Atheist is because everyone else around us often see’s us as less than the S*** on the bottom of their shoes simply because we are trying to live our lives in honesty and sincerity. It’s gets exhausting….

[michaelramon]

The "you're so nice, I think you are really a Christian deep down" thing is actually quite an insult. They may be saying you have positive qualities, but they are also saying that they don't respect you enough to take your statements about your own beliefs at face value. They are saying that they think that you are either dishonest or too stupid to understand how you really feel. They probably don't think of it that way, but they are absolutely insulting you.

[deimmartillo]

I once had a friend who said: "it's fine that you are an atheist." But she said it in a sad tone, like she was extremely dissapointed.

[Hitoshura]

From a psych degree here, that is a very healthy take on anger. All emotion is supposed to motivate behavior and correctly channeled anger should produce actions that help you to defend yourself from some form of threat. However; carrying around anger day to day is like "drinking poison and waiting for your enemy to die".

[volundrgingersen]

I had someone do a similar thing to myself when they found out I was pro-choice. They were like, "you were always so nice, why would you support this?".

[rini]

Cognitive dissonance is something that they have to deal with daily. They become good at ignoring it.

[gypsyjengypsydogs]

If I had a nickel for every time I have heard "You're an Atheist?! But you're so nice!".
I've also been asked what keeps me from murdering people and I find that question terrifying. I usually remove myself from those conversations.

[laszlodomonkos]

When I became an atheist, I was pretty arrogant and angry. To this day it is pretty hard to resist the urge of mockery. Your videos play a big part in being calm, compationate and collected about an argument. I myself exprerienced that talking this way makes religious people to hear me out. So, I think your efforts are very effective and honestly needed. Keep up the good work, my friend!

[cheshireket]

A lot of atheists have religious trauma. I used to. (I'm Agnostic now)

Labeling us as "angry" is a way they can ignore what we're saying.

Like. I was a Catholic Theology student that then went looking for God to various sections of Christianity, than then went to Judaism that was planning on visiting Islam before I stopped and went "is this real, or do I want it to be real?"

When I tell people my story, they need to find a way this happened. To excuse it to themselves. To say "this could never happen to me because you were different."

It's either:

1. You never believed. 'This can't happen to me because I KNOW Christ."

2. You're an Apostate. You have no authority to speak about anything. So your entire argument is invalid.

The answer is idk. And no one has proof. So I abstain judgement.

I seriously believed. I'm not an anti-theist because I see why some people NEED to believe. It's amazing. Who wouldn't want to believe it? But we have no proof any of it is true.

I'm not "angry at God." Because I'm not sure God is real at all. That's like being mad at Santa. Futile and useless.

I'm angry at ppl trying to force me to do what their religion says. I let them be, they need to let me be too.

I live in the usa. They're actively trying to push Christianity into our secular government. So I fight back. Because that's not okay.

[crunchyfrog]

I believe in being a reciprocating atheist (or rather a reciprocating person generally).
In other words, give as you get. If someone approaches you and behaves nicely, as a kind of default I go with that. But if they are bad faith actors or just poorly behaved then I act accordingly. This doesn't necessarily mean I'll behave equally, but rather I'll cut out the niceties and go to blunt directness instead.
It serves really well.

[cinderellahour]

I've been asked..."how are you such a good person then?" I'm like, "I don't need religion to be a good person. I'm just a good person. "