Why do people pretend to be Atheists and ask stupid questions...?

Question

...about religion, evolution, abortion, etc.? Don't they realize that it's obvious what they're doing? Do they even care?

On a side note, what's with the people pretending to be ex-Wiccans and born again Christians? They're coming out of the woodwork recently and they don't seem to know the first thing about Wicca or witchcraft which makes me very suspicious. Is there something in the water?

Answer 1

It's called playing the "devils advocate". They argue the other side but all they ever REALLY do is is set up strawmen for their buddies to knock over. Then they step back over the line and let their comrades slap them on the back for dealing such a "righteous blow" to the opposition.

It's not hard to knock down strawmen, folks. They're flimsy to begin with. They're assembled of warped misinterpretations... of course those are a cinch to topple over time after time.

Answer 2

Because some people enjoy making fun of others beliefs and views. They think they are being clever when they are posing as something they aren't.

I agree with the bit about the fake ex-Wiccans, I just saw one on the last question I answered going about how Wiccans worship the devil. They aren't convincing at all to people who actually know anything about that religion, but I bet they convince people who have no idea. Same deal with all the other posers.

Answer 3

For all intents this is a children's forum; children, of course, like to pretend lots of things, and they are just now learning about all these supposedly grown-up things to be, or attitudes they can cop: atheists, wiccans, born-agains, trolls, rude turds, etc.

Many children who lack reasonable self respect also usually lack the necessary social skills and understanding to tell what's truly humourous from what's truly demeaning, insulting, racist, or bigoted; maturity is in short supply in such minds, and when you can say what ever you want with relative impunity, humans— of whatever age— often do.

Can we really expect a few employees of Yahoo! to effectively baby-sit these electronic playpens?

No.

Can we expect it to take a long time before these children gain enough self respect to regulate their own immature intellects?

Yes.

Like everything else in life, we each have to learn affective ways to separate valuable knowledge from useless trash, the good from the bad, truth from error, "the wheat from the chaff." Not responding to every dropping of trash littered here by little minds is a good first step in acquiring that skill.

Answer 4

david may be right but I don't expect much in this category for many reasons : one being the many children that some can't tell from the adults.the mind set of this venue is dismaying to say the least.

Answer 5

And then they put stupid thoughts about evolution and make us true atheists look bad

Answer 6

The same reason non believers do that with the other faiths.

It's soo annoying..or maybe there really are some silly people in this world.

Answer 7

One thing you learn as you go along is that there are a lot of people in love with the sound of their own voice... and in love with their own dumb ravings.

Answer 8

It's called Pious Fraud and christians indulge in it all the time.
They think that lying is ok so long as they can convince yet another mindless sheep to join the flock.
It's pathetic.

Answer 9

nah, they justgrew up a little. many 13 year olds think it wouldbe cool to be wiccan because they think they can do magic.when they discover they can't, they 'convert' back

Answer 10

Sometimes they ask very good questions, that we all should really try and find the answers for.