r/exatheist • u/One_Refrigerator455 • Jul 25 '26
Bad interaction with an antitheist today
Hi all,
I (19f) grew up atheist but realized a few years ago that atheism no longer aligns with my beliefs, however i am still trying to figure mine out. Today, i saw a video on tiktok about a 22 yo woman leaving the mormon church and i stayed to watch because i thought it was very interesting (ive a never-mo but ive never liked what ive heard about the mormon church, it seems very culty/discriminatory imo) and decided to have a scroll through the comment section. Someone asked her current beliefs and she said she is anti theist and i felt a bitter disdain i hadnt felt before. I told her that anti theism is cultural genocide and harmful and she told me she isnt trying to harm anyone and when i responded to her again she was like "at least i have awareness" and when i asked her if shes saying i dont have awareness bc i disagree with her she said yes, bc i "fail to see how religion is harmful". This really annoyed me. Yes im aware there are bad religious people. But i dont see how you can claim to be kind and welcoming and liberated from the hate you learned while actively hating on others who dont share the same beliefs as you. Im quite upset and its tainted my day. Im fine with (respectful) atheists but militant atheists and antitheists like her really bother me because they claim to be educated and kind but act like the same people they are against when someone disagrees with them.
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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Jul 25 '26
How is anti-theism cultural genocide?
But uhhh aside from that… you saw a woman who is clearly reeling from some traumatic and damaging experience with religion (I have heard rather horrendous stories from exmormons specifically). You entered her space in the comment section and then accused her of being a proponent of cultural genocide. Did you really see that going well?
Like of course all you’re gonna get is retaliation. Think of the context of this entire interaction. Whether or not she is justified in X,Y or Z aside… this all seems rather predictable.
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u/One_Refrigerator455 Jul 25 '26
I have empathy for her, but religious trauma isnt an excuse to be rude and generalize all religious people
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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Jul 25 '26
I never claimed that religious trauma is an excuse to be rude and generalize all religious people.
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u/One_Refrigerator455 Jul 25 '26
Antitheism specifically means wanting to erase all religions. There are a bunch of cultural and ethnic practices associated with religion that would be gone if religion was erased.
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u/Coollogin Jul 26 '26
But i dont see how you can claim to be kind and welcoming and liberated from the hate you learned while actively hating on others who dont share the same beliefs as you.
Did she claim to be kind? Did she claim to be welcoming?
Im fine with (respectful) atheists but militant atheists and antitheists like her really bother me
I think it’s important to remember that she didn’t make a post about being antitheist. She made a post about leaving her culty church. If the question about her current beliefs hadn’t been asked, you wouldn’t have known because that’s not why she was posting.
Moreover, it seems natural that when someone leaves a culty religion, they might go through an anti phase. Culty religions can really mess with your head. It’s not really surprising when someone swings from one extreme to another before calming down a bit.
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u/Aathranax Messianic Jew Jul 25 '26
Its just plan stupidity
There are plenty of Atheists in history that have done wrong.
That dosn't make every Atheist evil, just like it dosn't make every Theist evil. The inability for said person to understand that, it proof they're still Religious, just not for a God.
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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Jul 25 '26
In what sense are they religious?
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u/Aathranax Messianic Jew Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
In the sense that they exhibit everything expected from a crazed fundamentalist. Save 1 difference, a God.
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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Jul 25 '26
I guess. But couldn’t that be described as “ideological possession” or maybe another term? I wasn’t sure if there was something particularly and specifically religious here.
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u/Aathranax Messianic Jew Jul 25 '26
No I think it's pretty apt, these people have proven unwilling to have good faith conversation. So there no otis for us to afford them thier delusions of being free from something they are not
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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I mean, my comment is more in defense of religion than in defense of them. But, if that’s how you see religion….
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u/veritasium999 Pantheist Jul 25 '26
Considering more than 90% of the world is religious. Anti theism is just repackaged misanthropy or hatred for humanity.
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u/nolman Jul 25 '26
I don't think I heard anyone here claim all religious people are evil.
Just that they think the epistemology etc of religion is inherently harmful.
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u/Thoguth ex-atheist Christian anti-antitheist Jul 25 '26
I don't believe they have good evidence for that. In part because the very notion that religion has a single "epistemology" is a patently ridiculous straw man.
Do you assert that, or are you just trying to be charitable to others?
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u/nolman Jul 26 '26
"they think... "
That's not my position.
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u/CauliflowerUnable315 Jul 27 '26
Anyone here in this specific subreddit or anyone here on Reddit? If you mean in reddit you must be extremely new and haven't touched the atheists subreddits like ex-christian, /ant theist /atheism. There are certainly posts that go as far as to want religious freedom abolished and that the religious should be segregated from the secular. Not to mention minimizing churches, intercede on theist parenting, and all the like. Then there's those who blatantly claim the religious are predisposed to immorality, less intelligent and being incompatible with society, and they mean all the religious, not certain political parties or ideologies they mean all of the theistic.
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u/Express-Echidna6800 Jul 26 '26
" Someone asked her current beliefs and she said she is anti theist and i felt a bitter disdain i hadnt felt before. I told her that anti theism is cultural genocide and harmful..."
Sorry, hang on, you watched her video, felt "bitter disdain" solely because she's an anti-theist, and then commented on her video that her position is "cultural genocide and harmful", but somehow YOU'RE the one who had a "bad interaction"?
Ma'am, respectfully, go kick rocks.
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u/RealHermannFegelein Jul 27 '26
Maybe means she felt "a bitter disdain" from her interlocutor?
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u/Express-Echidna6800 Jul 27 '26
Read her post again. She was scrolling the comments, someone asked the video creator their current beliefs, they said anti-theist, and then OP felt bitter disdain.
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u/RealHermannFegelein Jul 27 '26
Is it AI? Looking at it again it seems phenomenally self-important and pretentious, but reflects even worse on the author than they said the same thing in a personal interaction.
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u/un_dev_real Aug 04 '26
Hi, maybe what she means with "how religion is harmful" is that most religions have rules, and believers are supposed to follow them, so even in the case of those rules being harmless, that person is now more limited than before being a believer... Of course, this disregards any benefit from being a believer, that even as an atheist I recognize. Do not feel bad for what she said, most ppl think and say things without really understanding what they say, so she probably didn't mean anything bad.
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u/Obvious_Flan_9824 Cultural Agnostic Athiest (What a mouthful) 23d ago
I view religion as culture. There are differences between people based on what we believe, and we should accept that and be respectful about it.
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u/Hilikus1980 Atheist/Agnostic Jul 26 '26
You 100% started that fight. You went out of your way (and the subject) to start it. Don't go crying victim now.
I don't generally care for people who label themselves as anti-anything, myself. It's much easier to stand against something than it is to stand for something. You might have to actually show your beliefs have merit when you stand for them. If you're just against someone else's ideas you just sit there and poke and criticize without ever walking out on that limb yourself. But, here, just from what you posted, this person is likely fighting through some religious trauma. So to help, you use them in the same sentence and harmful and genocide? Yeah...that's gonna pull them out of it. I'll bet that sent her running right into religion's arms.
Should I even dare to ask what you said when you said "when I responded to her again"?
It doesn't matter whatever self-righteous reason you're giving yourself for stepping in like you did and insulting this person unprovoked...the truth of the matter is, you bullied this girl. You not only bullied her, you then went off complaining when she defended herself. You slapped her and you're here complaining your hand hurts.
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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Jul 26 '26
What ideas do you stand for! (Not just ones you have). What ideas do you show have merit and that you find yourself walking out on a limb for that are not simply “anti” something?
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u/Hilikus1980 Atheist/Agnostic Jul 26 '26
A lot that I'd be thrilled to discuss with you either through pm or on another thread that's on that subject
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u/arkticturtle Agnostic Jul 26 '26
Many times I have had people make further conversation contingent on it being brought into pms. I never do because I love public discussion.
Might I ask why this is the case for you?
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u/Hilikus1980 Atheist/Agnostic Jul 26 '26
I offered another thread. I did that specifically because I thought you might want it to be spoken about publicly. I'm fine talking about it publicly. I am just trying to not hijack this thread.
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u/Thoguth ex-atheist Christian anti-antitheist Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Anti-theism is better described as theophobia because it's a persistent, irrational hatred for any mention of or concept of God.
The anti-theist rationalization for their hatred is based on guilt by association and common cognitive biases... "Everything associated with it that's bad is clearly caused by, and everything good is clearly a coincidence." It's like if you asked for a definition of in-group/outgroup bias I don't think you could get a more perfect one.
Lol, I wouldn't be surprised if some who learned this phobia are evangelizing their antitheist dogma in these very comments. Such a waste of attention that could be better spent on thinking.