Among religious people, there is a lot of muttering that their non-religious counterparts, atheists, are rude. They start flamewars online, and always seem to want to argue about religion. Why is this? Hint: it's not because their sense of morality was damaged when they lost their belief in the divine.
To explain this, we must first recognize the most vocal and militant atheists: American Atheists. In the United States, there are perfect conditions for atheists to voice their opinions: a relatively high percentage of the people are atheists or otherwise unaffiliated, and freedom of speech. The high percentage of unaffiliated people in the U.S. (22.8%) is not big enough to make any major political changes, and this creates an enormous amount of tension between religious and non-religious people. In most other countries, religion is either of much less importance, therefore not creating a lot of tension, or it is of such importance that there is no freedom of speech about the subject allowed.
We are. It's just that with freedom of speech also comes the freedom to insult, and that's what bothers religious people.
Atheists generally view religion as something horrible. To most of us, it is a system of oppression, the oppression of the individual, of free thought and the progress of science. Truth be told- it has been used to oppress people, and it oppresses people to this day. Most of us have read the Bible or the Qur'an, and were horrified at the awful texts, where God tells slaves to obey their masters and tells people to kill, rape and torture heretics. To pray on your knees to such an entity seems like collaboration with the enemy, the surrender to an evil overlord. This all is fine, but when we see people praise God, and convince others to live their lives under the rule of a tyrant, it makes our blood boil, and I say that to be conservative.
There are far more reasons that atheists have a hostile attitude towards people who believe. Many of us were religious when we were children, and felt lied to when we found out the truth. We feel angry for our fellow atheists who don't have the right to speak freely about their lack of belief. When we speak out about this, we tend to get death threats. We feel superior to non-religious people, as the atheist side has never lost a debate. We're afraid to lose our rights to a religious majority.
We keep debating. Even though it offends some people, that doesn't weigh up to the many good things that follow the debate. It's good for cultural progress. It's important for the liberation of countries that are still ruled under Shariah law. It educates people, teaches them to think for themselves, whatever side they might take. As long as this debate stays peaceful, we should encourage people to take part in it. Let's hope someday, we might have peace.
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