Echo Chamber

    A strange thing I’ve encountered being an Atheist is the need some seem to have to assault another for believing differently. I’ve said before I have a facebook page, and a twitter, and I follow people like Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais. The strange thing is that I have friends who are Christian, which isn’t strange in and of itself, so sometimes when they post on pages relating to Christianity or Jesus it’ll pop up on my feed. The strange thing about it is that the posts they comment on/like usually just have pages and pages of responses saying “Amen” and such like. However, when I see a post on the Richard Dawkins page, many times not even about Christianity or even a be necessarily Atheist, it’s often filled with people insulting Atheists, and every once in awhile, someone calling Dawkins the Anti-Christ. Though the Anti-Christ would clearly be a Christian or Christian leader of some description, but I’ll get into that another time.

    Now I understand the idea of Christians or Atheists attacking the other in a circle jerk between each other. I know that happens in pretty much every social group so I don’t think either is particularly special for doing so. The thing that I don’t understand is when a Christian takes offense and attacks an Atheist, on an Atheist page for being an Atheist. I mean, you’d expect to see an Atheist being an Atheist, and maybe being offensive toward someone who puts merit to something they find ridiculous, on an Atheist page.

    Now, I can say that Christians don’t seem to comment as much negatively on their pages about Atheists or others, however. I more often see Christians liking/commenting on a post that is in itself purposely offensive to non-Christians. Often bundled with a pseudo-threat about what will happen if they don’t comment, or like the post. “Like and comment ‘Amen’ if you believe in Jesus, keep scrolling and (displays picture of something horrible, often an injury or illness).” Or, “If you believe in Jesus I dare you to type ‘Amen,’” as though it was somehow unpopular to declare yourself a member of one of the most popular religions in the world.

    Now again, I’m not saying Christians are special for circle jerking in that way because many social groups do such. The problem I have is when they invade the other side’s social group to insult them. It’s not just Atheist pages, it’s also LGBT friendly pages, which garner large amounts of hate for just being.

    So, inside your own group you can sit there and circle jerk for eternity about how dumb everyone outside their echo chamber is, so that the rest of us can reach outside our social group and learn from others what they think. We can grow and the hateful and just be left in their box. I don’t feel it’s necessary for them to ever come out of their box to attack others for any reason. If you reach outside your box you should always be willing to listen to the opinions of others. That’s the whole point of reaching out, I don’t even begin to understand the need to step outside your box to assault someone from another, it’s completely ridiculous.

    Why be unnecessarily cruel, when you can just listen? You know when someone says that something is good for my soul, or my salvation, I don’t believe in the existence of a soul. So you’re not helping me by telling me something I need to accept because my soul is in danger or that maybe I’ll go to Hell. I don’t believe in the existence of Hell either, so the threat of eternal punishment doesn’t scare me. I don’t appreciate people stepping out of the Christian box to tell me that I need to change something for the good of my soul. If you’re stepping out of your box and not willing to understand, or even make an attempt to, that people have differing views to yours and that they are entitled to that view. People are allowed to believe whatever they want, people are allowed to be wrong. You can tell them they are wrong, but you have to understand their point to be able to actually explain why they are wrong. So you have to listen to them, you have to give their point weight, then compare that to your own points, then determine if it’s worth your time for debating it. All opinions are not created equal. Sometimes the opinion that is not as supported is your own, and you must be willing to accept your own errors. I personally believe, one should be more willing to look at their own errors before making any attempt at seeking errors in others.

    So if you see tons of errors in others and a need to correct them, and no errors in yourself, please just stay in your echo chamber, so the rest of us can grow. We don’t need that kind of negativity in our lives.