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Vitriolic hatred of religion

 
 
 
DrZoidberg

DrZoidberg

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I was listening to a Swedish atheist podcast. This is a podcast for and by ex-muslims in Sweden. They said something interesting about the attitude of a new atheist.

One of them expressed a vitriolic hatred of Islam which calmed down over the years. All the others agreed. A Jewish guy on the podcast explained how after moving to Israel he did a lot of talking shit about Sweden initially. And then calmed down. He described it as a journey. When we first embark on a journey, we're not sure we made the right choice. So we turn against the old in order to rationalize our choice. Initially we still have a lot of emotional attachment to our old identity, and it hurts that this is denied us. He made an analogy with breaking up with a girlfriend. Initially you have nothing good to say about your ex. But once you've calmed down you can see things more clearly you can even become friends again.

I recognized this behaviour in myself from when I moved to Denmark (from Sweden). I never de-converted to atheism. I was raised atheist. So I never took this journey. But I do recognize the pattern among the ex-Muslims I have listened to (in interviews and such). When they're new deconverts they are often filled with vitriolic hatred, as if Islam is nothing but a den of vipers and evil. Then later they think that there's lots of beautiful things about Islam.

The ex-Muslims on the podcast where all of the later type. They all deconverted more than 5 years ago and none of them hate Islam any longer. They all did. But don't now. And they're all still atheists.

Have you had a similar experience? Can you relate? How as your deconversion journey as regards to your hatred of your former faith?

The name of the Podcast is "Den Sista Måltiden"
 
Here's a fun video from one of the people on the podcast. It's in English.

When he asked for asylum in Sweden he said he came to Sweden because he was an atheist and risked persecution in Egypt. They didn't believe him. So he recorded a video of himself desecration the Quran and put it on YouTube. That did the trick. This is the video.

https://youtu.be/-2cjYaXC1sg
 
I suppose 'vitriolic hatred of religion' is a thing. I'm not convinced it's the predominate element in freethought. George F. Will described himself as 'an unaggressive atheist', and that wording makes sense to me.
Believers can mistake vitriol for the complete lack of reverence that comes from being convinced that their pantheon of gods, devils, angels, etc., is illusory. Hence the ad hominem argument you'll hear that one's atheism is a revolt against God's authority and that it is hatred of God. That's usually not at all what's going on. To atheists, hating God is like hating Simon Legree or hating the tooth fairy. No denying that freethought humor can be caustic, but that tends to be the tone of humor that is directed toward the folly of mankind.
 
ideologyhunter said:
I suppose 'vitriolic hatred of religion' is a thing. I'm not convinced it's the predominate element in freethought. George F. Will described himself as 'an unaggressive atheist', and that wording makes sense to me.
Believers can mistake vitriol for the complete lack of reverence that comes from being convinced that their pantheon of gods, devils, angels, etc., is illusory. Hence the ad hominem argument you'll hear that one's atheism is a revolt against God's authority and that it is hatred of God. That's usually not at all what's going on. To atheists, hating God is like hating Simon Legree or hating the tooth fairy. No denying that freethought humor can be caustic, but that tends to be the tone of humor that is directed toward the folly of mankind.
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I think you confused the point of this thread. These ex-muslims are all saying that they started out with vitriolic hatred, but after a few years they were fine with Islam again. They just stayed atheist. So they did no longer have a vitriolic hatred of religion anymore. So for them vitriolic hatred, was no longer a thing.

My question is if there's any other ex-religious here who started out hating their old religion, and over time lost the hate, but staying atheist.
 
I was raised in an extremely strict evangelical Christian home. In fact, my parents were converts when I was about 4 or 5. I lost that faith when I was about 18, but didn't consider myself an atheist until I was about 28. I enjoyed my long journey, which included the casual study and consideration of other religions. I have never despised religion, but as I've aged, I've actually seen many benefits that it offers. That is probably why in the US there are at least a small percentage of atheist Christians. I've met a couple of them.

So, I guess you could say that I have "calmed down" a bit, but I was never a zealous religious hating atheist in the first place. I've just become more reasonable in regards to religion. I've come to believe that most human designed belief systems, regardless if they are secular or supernatural, are based on myths. It's only extremism that harms the world.

I also tend to think that we atheists are often influenced by our peers. If we hang out with mostly religion hating atheists, we can be influenced by them, or we may discover that we don't have much in common with them, so we pull away. My experience with atheist groups is that we usually have lots of things to talk about, other than religion or atheism. Some of my atheist friends despise all religion and some are apathetic about religion. It's fine with me, as long as we don't use our different views on religion, as a way to judge each other's character.

I get your point. I do think it's common to change your views over time.
 
southernhybrid said:
I also tend to think that we atheists are often influenced by our peers. If we hang out with mostly religion hating atheists, we can be influenced by them, or we may discover that we don't have much in common with them, so we pull away. My experience with atheist groups is that we usually have lots of things to talk about, other than religion or atheism. Some of my atheist friends despise all religion and some are apathetic about religion. It's fine with me, as long as we don't use our different views on religion, as a way to judge each other's character.

I get your point. I do think it's common to change your views over time.
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Which is an excellent point. Since being an atheist is a sport like not playing tennis, it stands to reason that unless atheists are outspoken enemies of religion, they are not going to meet in groups. An atheist who is fine with religion will not see any point in discussing it. They'll just get on with life. That's increasingly my position. I no longer think religion is the grand corruptor of the world. I actually don't think the whole world being de-converted to atheism will solve any of humanities problems. I think it'll be the same shit. I also don't buy the whole "religion makes us extremists"-thing. I think people start with being an extremist, then go finding something to be extreme about. While extreme butterfly collecting is less harmful than Islamism... in the big picture... meh.

Anyhoo... So we're more likely to come across atheists who hate religion in atheist circles than in the general atheist population. Most Swedes are atheists, yet very few Swedes actually hate religion. They typically don't care about religion either way. To them church is a place where they get their grades by the teacher at the end of each semester. And that's pretty much it.
 
It could be that my being brought up during childhood as a Methodist has some holdover. Now, as an atheist, I still hold that "everything in moderation" works for me. As I see it, it is extremism that leads to narrow minded thinking and intolerance whether it be from avid theists or militant atheists.

Fuck the extremist butterfly collectors. ;)
 
DrZoidberg said:
ideologyhunter said:
I suppose 'vitriolic hatred of religion' is a thing. I'm not convinced it's the predominate element in freethought. George F. Will described himself as 'an unaggressive atheist', and that wording makes sense to me.
Believers can mistake vitriol for the complete lack of reverence that comes from being convinced that their pantheon of gods, devils, angels, etc., is illusory. Hence the ad hominem argument you'll hear that one's atheism is a revolt against God's authority and that it is hatred of God. That's usually not at all what's going on. To atheists, hating God is like hating Simon Legree or hating the tooth fairy. No denying that freethought humor can be caustic, but that tends to be the tone of humor that is directed toward the folly of mankind.
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I think you confused the point of this thread. These ex-muslims are all saying that they started out with vitriolic hatred, but after a few years they were fine with Islam again. They just stayed atheist. So they did no longer have a vitriolic hatred of religion anymore. So for them vitriolic hatred, was no longer a thing.

My question is if there's any other ex-religious here who started out hating their old religion, and over time lost the hate, but staying atheist.
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They were fine with Islam because they were no longer being persecuted by it. That's the only reason they were able to calm down, because they were living in a culture that accepted their new identity, they were free, there were alternatives. It's a no-brainer, obviously.

Vitriolic hatred of an abusive guardian is understandable for an intelligent person who's identity is not so fixed and who is a prisoner, Stockholm Syndrome notwithstanding.
 
Was raised nominally Catholic, but we never seriously talked about religion in our family and at the dinner table. Going to church on Sunday morning and engaging in other certain tasks was more of a mindless ritual. Saw that the same thing was very often true for other people. The ones who took it seriously were a small minority. Mostly I just found the whole thing annoying, and on rare occasions it would give some degrees or types of comfort or anxiety, depending on the mood and other circumstances. Still, I thought it was rather obvious that God and religion were just manmade constructs. No biggie though. Then I got to college and met a lot of people who resembled me in many ways---their interests, their outlooks, etc.---except they were genuinely religious and sincerely believed that stuff. It got me intrigued to study it further, and that included studying atheist views (which brought me to atheist forums like this). Then I was blown away to learn how powerful an influence religion had in the world, and I had underestimated the damage it has done in history and the present day and will do in the future. Also how much it had misshapen my own understanding of how the world works. Then 9/11 happened and I realized that I could no longer maintain the delusion that there was such a thing as a "private religious belief." A person's internal beliefs will shape their public behavior, through various means and to various degrees. Later issues, such as the gay marriage debate in the U.S., revealed to me the overall harm that religion was doing to people. That included the nonbelievers as well as the believers (who would be very oblivious to the self-harm their religious beliefs were inflicting on them.). So I was never really religious by any stretch, but only became more proactive in secularism when seeing more and more how much of a threat and impediment to progress religions generally were. My own religious background was rather lenient and easy in comparison to what others had to endure, and I owe it to them to provide aid and reduce the damages that religions persist in.

People commonly attribute my desire in being proactive towards removing the harm of religion as being "hateful" or "militant" and "extremist" and such, but that is more of a poisoning the well rhetorical approach. Focusing on the labels ignores the substance of the position. They will pretty much always resort to label-applying because those particular labels are so off-putting. So there is a reward to try to apply them to anyone who disagrees with you, as often as you can get away with. Christians often will use those terms to explain why I am activist, but atheists commonly do too. They both make similar mistakes though, in thinking that advocating for my views must mean I "hate" opposing ideas. There are plenty of viewpoints that I disagree with, but do not hate (regarding economics, politics, etc.). My opposition to religion is stronger, because I think the overall danger it poses is generally deeper---whether you refer to that as "hate" is up to you. Either way, the view stands or falls on the merits, and not on the label.

There is also a common mistake of associating "extremist" with being wrong and with "middle of the road" as being right. It forgets that some viewpoints actually are closer to the truth than others, not all views have equal merit. Positioning yourself right in the middle of 2 differing views does not in the slightest mean you are more reasonable than both of them. It could be that you are just compromising the more accurate position for the sake of appeasing the person with the more unreasonable position. That is not how we should be deciding our views. Instead, we should be using evidence, logic, science. If one position is very well supported by them, then we should adopt it. If another position is very much rejected by them, then we likewise should reject it. That is how progress is made.
 
Getting to the OP, it does seem sensible that an individual can feel a stronger sense of vengeance in the short term towards their former religion, and that feeling dissipates over the long term. Similar to how we feel about ex-romantic partners or bad coworkers that we have distanced from after having left the company, etc.
 
Leave the vengeance and hatred to the religionists and their vengeful, hateful god and instead let's talk about rightful anger.

And to the religious believers and their apologists, how do you discern the difference? How do you recognize anger versus hate or vengeance?

I don't want to hate... that is one reason I am angry about the toxic, backward, inhumane nature of religion. And vengeance? WTF? I don't want revenge on anyone. I want them to examine their inhumane belief system honestly and maturely so as not to continue contributing to a world of religious poison. For fuck's sake.
 
I never viewed the whole of Christianity as entirely bad. All the changes since my de-conversion from fundy-ism have just been a progression of insights about the philosophy/psychology found in religions, not a progression from emotionally reacting against "religion" and then calming down in time.

The literalism of fundies is stupid not because I hate fundy-ism but because mistaking myths for history is extremely stupid. Annoyance at that kind of stupidity is a rational response.

Hatred, no. Anger, no. Annoyance, yes - with some aspects of "religion".

Also over-generalizing about religion (and atheists) annoys me. I can't determine that all "religion" is bad or harmful; I only identify traits within it that are bad and harmful. I don't extrapolate the traits of some religions to the whole thing "religion" since there's no whole monolithic thing.
 
As I got older, married, raised a family, moved around a lot, I realized that religion was just a comfortable prison, like never wanting to venture far from home. I learned it wasn't for me. So I'll leave people alone in their comfortable prisons if they'll leave me alone to be free. There is a sense of loss in having spent so much time doing inane things, it certainly would have been better if religion had been only one of many things and not the one thing, but that's over. If it wasn't over, if people were still trying to imprison and harm me, the war would still be on.
 
Angry Floof said:
And vengeance? WTF? I don't want revenge on anyone. I want them to examine their inhumane belief system honestly and maturely so as not to continue contributing to a world of religious poison. For fuck's sake.
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Have you ever in your life felt vengeance? It is a pretty common human emotional experience. When someone does harm to us, we want to return it and do harm to them in retaliation. It can be about all sorts of human-to-human interactions like bad relationships, bad neighbors, criminals who robbed you or killed someone you love, a coworker that pisses you off every time you are in the same room as each other, ex-friends who betrayed you, etc.

In our judicial system, there is a distinction that needs to be recognized between specific people seeking vengeance/revenge against someone who hurt them versus the broader principle of society needing justice to be served. We seek to avoid using the law as a means of getting revenge, and instead try to use the law as a means of enforcing justice.
 
Yes, I've experienced vengefulness, but not regarding religion. I don't want people being punished for their beliefs. This is why I say 'for fuck's sake'!

Is this really how people here think? If you criticize someone's beliefs that means you want them punished??

There may be individuals who commit abuses that I do feel they should be held accountable for, and if they are punished, I freely admit to schadenfreude. But if punishment/hatred/revenge is your overarching regard for religion and religious believers, then you need to do some serious self reflection.
 
I hate people who think I lack morals because I don't believe in god, and assume I believe in god because I have compassion for others.
 
DrZoidberg said:
... Since being an atheist is a sport like not playing tennis, it stands to reason that unless atheists are outspoken enemies of religion, they are not going to meet in groups.
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I'm not buying that. Some people like the Sunday-go-to-meeting idea. They may miss it if they were used to do it, and they form groups to replace the religious groups that used to do that for them.

I know various atheists who go to Unitarian churches, which are said to promote a belief in "one god at most."

I've read that theists are healthier than atheists just because they have more social connections. (I'm not endorsing that, just repeating it.) I think many atheists probably think that atheist groups -- where they won't be judged for their atheism -- would be socially and intellectually fulfilling.

I don't see any reason that atheists would have to be enemies of religion -- outspoken or otherwise -- in order to meet in groups.



An atheist who is fine with religion will not see any point in discussing it.
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People in book clubs are there only because they hate books?




... I also don't buy the whole "religion makes us extremists"-thing. I think people start with being an extremist, then go finding something to be extreme about.
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Reminds me of a quote, something like, "In the metaphysical supermarket, most people have chosen their morality before they choose their religion."
 
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