So, who is fielding the ”what do you want to ask an atheist" questions?

The atheist counterpart was posted first. It can be found here: http://www.fluther.com/167726/what-would-you-like-to-ask-an-atheist/

http://www.fluther.com/167726/what-would-you-like-to-ask-an-atheist/

ET must have been posting that from church or something, he didn’t really participate much. Seek and Tom_G did mostly.

I posted the theist one because Seek asked me to and everyone was being really cool and communicating well.

Can we please just move the fuck on. It is the same shit over and over again. Keep your religious stuff to yourself and I will return the favor.

@johnpowell Some of us find it interesting, you don’t have to participate buddy, it’s all good.

Just curious. What have you found interesting? What have you learned? What have you changed your mind about?

I learned a new term, henotheism, among other thing’s. We were even being all respectful and stuff this time, believe dat!

I must chime in and say I have checked in on both of those threads and I have learned absolutely nothing except that atheists want believers to stop believing and believers would be super happy if atheists believed in God (but only because it would save their soul). Oh wait, I already knew that. I agree with @johnpowell, time to move on.

Talking about how uninteresting religious discussions are is boring and uninteresting. I think it’s time to move on.

They would be interesting if there was some sort of actual debate based on scripture and facts. But that doesn’t happen much and it turns into everyone hating each other. I think they hurt the community. Carry on.

Edit:: I have never really learned anything from these discussions. But I have learned that there are homophobes that I can fix there computer and I refuse to help due to the whole homophobia thing. Carry on…...

I, too, have to say I have learned nothing from these type of threads and find the same 3 or 4 people participate.

No one is asking for your input or interest, nor your approval guys. Not to be rude but if we’re ok with it no worries.

If death is nothing to an atheist why not live on the edge to the full, why miss out on tons of excitement and an adrenaline rush? If an atheist dies while skydiving, bull busting, mountain climbing without ropes, etc.? If the worse happened in less than minute, it wouldn’t matter anymore. What reason do you need to be on the planet for? If you are here just to occupy space until you died, why would the planet need to have you hanging around for?

@Hypocrisy_Central That is a ridiculous argument. Yea, I die and am dead, doesn’t mean I want to hurry myself off to the grave. If anything you should be arguing why a theist doesn’t do these things, they have, after all, an eternal afterlife. My time is limited.

@KNOWITALL but don’t round and round kind of conversations that pretty much rehash the same stuff over and over and over and over and over and over kind of muck up the site? There have been several in just the short time I have been here and it just seems to be the same people arguing the same points. Not to be rude, but It is kind of like a dog chasing its tail, a lot of movement that gets absolutely nowhere. Honestly, if there really is a God, do you think He needs mere mortals to argue His existence? I mean it seems He would be more than capable of doing so Himself were He so inclined.

@Hypocrisy_Central are you seriously trying to turn this into another religious thread?

@Hypocrisy Well that doesn’t seem very nice. We’re all God’s children after all, even if we don’t claim Him.

@uberbatman If anything you should be arguing why a theist doesn’t do these things, they have, after all, an eternal afterlife. My time is limited.
Those believers who are not on milk, I know why they are not fearful of death while at the same time not hurrying to dance with the Grim Reaper; that is why I don’t need to ask them.

@KNOWITALL Well that doesn’t seem very nice. We’re all God’s children after all, even if we don’t claim Him.
Let’s not get it twisted; I am not saying atheist are useless, or undeserving of life. I guess what I am trying to ask is what are they living for? My 1st inclination is they, even if other people get some trickle down residuals from it, have no function to the earth, or anything other than serving of self, which they won’t remember the moment life leaves their body. It is like having a bus just to have one while never having an ideal to take on passengers or provide rides. I think it is a valid question as to what they feel their purpose on this planet is?

See! This is what happens in every thread about religion! This thread isn’t even about religion, it is about threads that are about religion, yet it is turning out to be about religion. ...and it is starting to look like all those other threads!

@Lil 8osmo Sorry but if I learn one thing, it’s worth it to me. Better than a 20 yr olds relationship issue imo ha!

@KNOWITALL so if you are so anxious to discuss this stuff why not take it to chat room? They always seem to be empty, it would be a great way to discuss it among those who are so inclined, and it would keep the site from being continually overly bombarded with these types of questions. You could schedule a regular religious chat and invite anyone who is interested.

@Lilcosmo Why don’t you ignore the Q’s you don’t like? Seems easier. Bossing me won’t get you anywhere honey.

@KNOWITALL – It’s just my take, but that doesn’t really seem to be a respectful discussion. With a few notable exceptions, they’re asking you common questions to try and prove the paradox of your belief. It’s philosophy students on parade rather than honest people trying to gain some insight.

I’m sorry I even tried.

@KNOWITALL @LilCosmo isn’t bossing you, she was making a suggestion that seemed genuine to me, honey.

@Funkdaddy I had legit questions, they wanted the same opportunity to ask theirs. Don’t ya’ll ask what you want?

@KNOWITALL bossing you? I was just a suggestion of a place for you to discuss something that honestly seems over discussed on this site.

Speaking of chat rooms, there’s currently a party going on in one of them!

@All I suggest asking everyone else in meta. I can’t control etpro or seek, Lord knows lol

All non-“what does this dream man” questions should take place in the chat room.

@Tomg Are you drunk? lol @lilc & @chyna. When people censor it’s not cool. I would never suggest you moving to chat.

@KNOWITALL it isn’t about censoring, it is about containing. Besides I am not sure about @chyna, but I I’m sure I don’t have any say whatsoever on how this site is managed, so there is no need to be overly concerned.

@Lil8osmo No worries. I’m sure ET & Seek will be interested in your views. Let me know!

@KNOWITALL – Sorry. I was just kidding. I get a kick out of the “we shouldn’t be discussing this” stuff. I’m trying to think of something we should be discussing. Maybe something a little less controversial, like economics, guns, Obama, or Google.

@Tom_g I agree, kind sir. I did wonder for a minute if you had wine with dinner!

@KNOWITALL I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying ET and Seek would be interested in the chat room idea? That they would be interested in my thinking religion questions are overdone here? I guess that is interesting stuff. I wasn’t planning on sharing these ideas directly with them, but the ideas are right here in this thread and aren’t hiding from anyone.

I’m not really sure what you are wanting me to let you know either. I am thinking that if anyone has any feedback they’ll share it here.

I’m honestly not meaning to offend you or anyone else, I am just sharing my opinion.

Keep in mind that there is no need to vote or try to direct conversation on a site like this. Questions that are not interesting will attract little response. That’s how it works, right?

I like chatrooms. I like to discuss religion in chat rooms.

I also like to discuss religion in forum format, which allows time for research.

No, I will not promise to stop discussing religion in the main fora, because that would be stupid. For one – I rarely ask questions anyway. For two – there’s little enough happening on this site that to take away one of the topics that provides the most traffic is counterintuitive.

If you don’t like it, don’t look. If you enjoy as a guilty pleasure, I promise you don’t have to pretend to hate it out loud in order to maintain your credibility. None of us can see whether you’re following a thread.

@KNOWITALL – I wasn’t criticizing you by any means. Of course ask whatever you would like…

I was responding mostly to this line.

I posted the theist one because Seek asked me to and everyone was being really cool and communicating well.

Most of the questions presented are not meant to get your take on what it’s like to believe in a god, or your views, they are created to catch you in an error of logic. They’ve been debated for hundreds or thousands of years by philosophers and there’s no new answers, or correct ones. (wikipedia has a good primer)

So unless people are there to learn, or to get opinions, it’s the same debate. I don’t think most of the participants were there to learn, teach, or gather opinions, they were there for the show and to use all that prior study, possibly at your expense.

@funkdaddy Why are the questions on the theist thread seen that way, but not those on the atheist thread? The questions are not traps, in my opinion. They mostly seem to be of the “What is your personal take on this common question about a/theism?” In other words, they’re questions we’ve all thought about, and this is an opportunity for specific people to answer with their views.

Anyway, I’m not sure why I’m asking you this, because presumably I have nothing to learn from your answer.

man this is going well

@glacial – I never meant we didn’t have anything to learn from each other, that wasn’t my intent. (if that’s what your last sentence was inferring)... I didn’t participate in the atheist thread and didn’t read it until after leaving the theist question. So my opinion wasn’t based on comparing the two.

To me, if you ask a question you know there’s no satisfactory answer for, and then ridicule the answer given, that’s a trap. I don’t see many questions there that are about living with belief, or differences in theist’s lives, and the question regarding faith had no satisfactory answer. Most of the questions in the second half are about the nature of god, the nature of religion, or are considered classic arguments for non-believers.

Reading through, towards the end of the atheism thread someone decides to take a hard line, demand answers, be dismissive, and generally no longer show respect. The latter half of the theism thread feels the same to me. I don’t feel like there’s a lot of listening and learning going on there. I’ve acknowledged that’s just my opinion, but it appears you share it in at least one case.

Mostly I think we learned why there’s so few people answering in the theism question. They’ve all learned their lesson before.

@All I think it went pretty well so let’s relax. We have rules already & we didn’t break any. peace.

I did ask @KNOWITALL to post the ask a theist question, because one of her responses in the Ask an Atheist triggered a question in my mind that would have taken the Atheist thread entirely off track.

I’ll note, no one has yet answered it. One person mentioned faith was useful, but useful isn’t necessarily good.

There was no intent to trap anyone.

We do have one particular theist who I’ve stopped coddling who embodies just about every aspect of the basic Theist StrawMan. This person is blatantly disrespectful to other theists just as much as atheist. I believe the term they use is “Milk Christians”.

I was, honestly, hoping they wouldn’t show up when I asked @KNOWITALL to post that question.

@Seek_Kolinahr Well I enjoyed it and felt like I did learn some things even though answering to anyone here for what I’ve learned or thought is not going to happen.

I’m happy to do it again in future as well, and maybe we can get some of the idiots to stay out of it. It always starts good and ends poorly because people seem to have a lack of maturity and self-control.

I do wonder what it is about religion, above most other topics on the internet, that gets people all snippy?

@Symbeline People are passionate about it, I know I take insults towards my Deity very personally.
I’ve seen people write F God here on fluther and that’s just unnecessarily offensive to most theists, then when everyone laughs, it’s even worse. To me, it’s tantamount to getting in a gay person’s face and calling him the F word, or a black the N word.

But even without the name calling and a good degree of civility held, it always ends up breaking down. Add politics and abortion to the list too, although religion is always right in the spotlight.

@Symbeline But in fairness, every question on Fluther eventually breaks down. Often, it becomes a conversation between two people, and everyone else leaves. Or it becomes about food. Or pancakes. Or Odin. I don’t think there’s anything special or necessarily wrong with that.

No that’s not what I mean. You’re right for that, threads always get derailed, what I mean is people getting nasty with each other.

Go Odin!

@Symbeline It breaks down because there is no accountability here and no repercussions for poor behavior. So you lose a little respect and maybe a few friends, no one seems to care much, so may as well spew on everyone when you feel like it.

ET and I both asked people to be respectful, we tried, but that’s all we can do. What would be cool is if we could ‘hide’ people’s comments when they’re out of line, since it’s our posted Q. To be fair they could be reviewed by a mod in case anyone feels the poster of the Q is being spiteful or unfairly hiding people they don’t like.

@glacial I agree, I’ve seen some good fights on calm threads between two people quite a few times. Mayonnaise, no you idiot Miracle Whip! hahahaha

@KNOWITALL Haha yeah, I lost two good acquaintances on here because I dared to disagree with them once. Now they don’t ever, ever talk to me anymore. Ah well, what are ya gonna do lol.

@Symbeline I have more respect for people who disagree with me actually, doormats bore me. Seek and I aren’t the best of friends but I dig her personality a lot…lol

@Symbeline Gotcha. I misunderstood what you were saying.

@KNOWITALL And Miracle Whip, obviously. :D

@glacial Of course, it’s actually a running joke about how much I love MW!!

I am not asking atheist to defend their position, as if there was one to defend, I want to know how they think in different areas and if they are thinking things different from the Bible where they got them from and believe it it so much? Or…....I could just speculate.

@Hypocrisy_Central Me, too. Usually both sides are so defensive we can’t communicate or ask, that’s why I think these Q’s were a good thing for all.