Why are atheists 32 times more vitriolic than Christians?

Question

I decided to quantify the vitriol in R&S. I looked at the 10 most recent questions and counted the number of vitriolic remarks (those that included a direct insult either towards Christians, a specific member or towards another member's religion which had no associated redeeming quality or meaning behind the negative remark) made by those claiming to be atheists (i.e. containing an atheist reference in their name or by the blatant obviousness of their comment) and by Christians (using the same criteria). I only counted negative remarks and ignored those that were neutral, positive or dubious. I ignored the Saudi Arabia rape thread, even though it would have clearly painted atheists in a poorer light, because the distinctions were more difficult there. In total, I counted 32 vitriolic atheist remarks and a single vitriolic Christian remark. So why is it that atheists are so distinctly more vitriolic than Christians?

The rings around Uranus -AM-: It took about 5 minutes. But I appreciate your further validation of my point.

Jedicato, "Matches" AM: Actually I've only been here a couple times but have noted numerous atheists claiming that the "fundies" are vitriolic, evil, etc., but noticed that insults seemed to consistenly come from one side of the aisle. It's obviously not a valid statistical sample, but illustrates pretty well where the true hatred comes from.

salient2: I was objective. If I were more lenient towards Christians (i.e. something that a Christian would be unreasonably offended by), then the atheist vitriol figure could have easily doubled. I only included those comments which explicitely included direct insults. I even ignored the round-about insults.

tigris: It obviously wasn't meant to be a statistically valid sample. But rather my curiosity drove me to take a quick look given number of accusations against the evils of Christianity. Of course, most of the atheists responses here are either more insults or justifications for their insults, thus further supporting my point.

Suzanne: I counted vitriol without regard to its target. Ironically, the single instance of vitriol was from a Catholic against "fundies" (though I am a Catholic).

the Neutral Christ: I obviously didn't claim it was either "scientific" or a "statistically valid sample" and specifically detailed what I included and excluded. Note that the single answer designed to be an insult from a Christian was actually directed towards another breed of Christian. If you're interested, you should perform your own count.

Answer 1

I am a believer, but I don't think the answers to 10 questions is indicative of anything. My guess is both sides are equally guilty.

Answer 2

did you correct for the number of the postings? How did you identify whether somebody was atheist or christian? (Most people here don't tell, how do you deal with trolls?). Neglecting positive remarks doesn't help either, maybe atheists are "32 times more vitriolic" but also "30 times more positive", which would indicate greater polarization of behavior/opinion among atheists than christians.
In addition a "vitriolic" question will produce "vitriolic" answers. Questions like "all atheists will burn in hell" will get more vitriolic answers than " what did you have for breakfast". So you can't really add all the impolite answers for each question to a total, you should get an average for each question and then draw your statistics from this value. In addition you need to judge the offensiveness of the question. Which means you have to evaluate many more questions (I'd say at least 100 might be good) and also get people of different religious affiliation to judge questions, for your personal evaluation might be biased (it could be unconcious, so you really want to make sure you eliminate that possibility).

Basically you should do good science. If it's not a statistically valid sample you can't draw a valid conclusion. Sorry. It's about as valid as connecting the decline of piracy to global warming.

PS. If you count every answer which disagrees from your point of view as vitriolic, I am surprised your number is that low.

Answer 3

*chuckles*

I see you did a thorough scientific investigation. The statistics must have filled up a whole page of math!
Good thing you were so un-biased otherwise I would have accused you of seeing acidic comments where you wanted to and ignoring them where you did not want to see them...

Maybe we should use a litmus test to check which comments are sarcastic or humorous or just disrespectful as opposed to actually vitriolic (that would be sarcastic not vitriolic in case you cannot tell the difference). Besides it is very tough judging the acidity of someones WRITTEN (typed) words.

Answer 4

Its a selection effect. Your interpretation of vitriolic is much different than an atheists would be. I see Christians insulting atheists, you see atheists insulting Christians. I see you making a vitriolic remark here saying atheists are more vitriolic.

Who is the judge of what is a redeeming quality?

I am sure if I did a sample count my results would be just the opposite but at least I don't pretend to be unbiased.

Answer 5

well, 10 in 5494 is not a good sample. I have noticed that the types of questions and answers very a lot from morning to afternoon, or night. So I think your study would not hold up to any real scrutiny as a test sample.

Answer 6

I think it depends on the situation. There are a lot of things for atheists to be mad about and sometimes we're just looking for a place to vent. Debating/arguing with the theists will usually allow atheists to vent a lot of built up steam.

When you come across an atheist in a supermarket (though you'd prolly never know it) they're as polite and courteus as anyone else.

Answer 7

You're drawing conclusions from an unrepresentative sample. To be more accurate, you should sample at spread out times. (People come on, post a lot; leave and others come on. You may be seeing multiple posts from a few posters.)

You have drawn a conclusion about ALL atheists -- as though all atheists are identical to each other, and each of us is 32 times more vitriolic than Christians.

(Insulting participants violates the Guidelines of this site, BTW, and should be reported.)

Finally, your criteria specifically leave out all the ways the believers are vitriolic, or at least equally obnoxious.

Apparently, you haven't seen any of the hundreds of thousands (at least) of these kinds of posts from Christians and other believers:

"Your (sic) going to burn in h*ll forever. HAHAHA!"

"You hate god because you love sin."

Calling us all hypocrites and liars, as well as, often, showing glee at our supposed eternal torment. Is none of that offensive and uncalled for?

I've blanked out on others of the more common types of gunk spewed by the "righteous" but in general atheists are accused of murder, theft, and mayhem by people incapable of understanding any non-religious basis of morality.

Not to mention all the sermons and admonitions posted as "questions." (These are also violations, as questions are supposed to ASK, not preach. Perhaps they now get removed more quickly, as Yahoo has changed the Report system. I don't currently see them as often as I used to.)

I could just as easily ask "Why are Christians are 100% more likely to make bogus accusations about atheists, than atheists are about Christians?"

Now, as to the question of why some atheists are so hostile, specifically toward Christians, or toward the religious in general, I can shed some light.

The English-language section of this site is dominated by people from countries in which Christianity is the most common religion.

Many people were emotionally abused by the religiosity of their upbringing. That's the sort of thing that makes many people hostile toward the source of the abuse they suffered.

Also, those of us not abused by religion as children, are verbally assaulted continually by the "righteous" who insult and demean us, misrepresent what we say, try to impose their views on us through the law, and try to prevent education in our societies.

These also make many people hostile. Especially considering atheists are a minority, and thus feel attacked by the majority, who are also the most powerful. (I'm in the US, and atheists are much-bashed here.)

Are some atheist obnoxious and should they knock it off?

Yes.

But you're completely ignoring all the bashing from the other side.

Spend more time in this category, and leave the bias out of it.

And stop lumping all atheists together. We are not one person, we are individuals.

I point out to vitriolic atheists that not all believers are hateful; you, too, should be fair.

Answer 8

well there was a song about both qualities that are in question here.
R E S P E C T
and M O R A L I T Y
but....lifes full of choices......some to be respectful......
some to just be totally stooopid.......
and some to be ignorant.
mostly when people dont understand something....they make seemingly smart a#% comments....kinda like how the class clown did in school.......

Answer 9

I'm Christian and both side are mean . I really don't care .I just put my word out there. If they like it or not. I've had Christians block me and Atheists curse me.
Oh well such is Love and War.
GOD BLESS and SHALOM

Answer 10

FAITH - creates a foundation of grounding that brings peace. Without it one is left to float through the culture of illusion that is this world. "never coming to a Knowledge of the truth"