I'm just curious! Why are nonbelievers so offended by....?

Question

believers who believe. If they are happy and secure with their beliefs why do so many feel the need to enlighten them. Like I said, I'm just curious.

Answer 1

Why are believers so offended by those who don't believe? If they are happy and secure with their beliefs why do so many feel the need to convert them?

Answer 2

I'm not offended at all. I am however offended by believers pushing their belief onto non-believers.
Christianity is against using contraception, but Christians in Africa are dying from aids because it says contraception is bad. This is a situation in which, i am mad about religions, I don't mean to specifically point out Christianity, but i just used it as an example.
What about the news story about the Muslim teacher in some middle-east country who was suppose to be sentenced to death or something because she named a bear after the Muslim god or whatever. As a non-Muslim, wouldn't you be angry at the injustice? But as a muslim, you could definitely see the merit in the sentencing.
I have many friends who are christians, but whether they are christian, muslim, jewish or buddhist or what not, it doesn't matter, they are still my friends. I don't feel the need to enlighten them, since i know what they believe in is their business and i know what they believe in is what is good for them.

Answer 3

I did not know they were offended, other than they feel no one has a right to push their beliefs on them.

Christians are, by far, the worse to be offended. They have a fit and say people ar going to hell if they do not believe. I do honestly believe they react this way because they are so trying to convince themselves of a religion that is not plausible. G-d would never come to earth in human form. People made up a religion about a Rabbi who lived 2,000 years ago.

Answer 4

This atheist is offended by superstitious belief because I am well aware of the damage it does to human civilization. Before Galileo, when everyone imagined their own thoughts were the basis of reality and the physical realm was imaginary, Western Civilization was unable to make significant moral or technological progress. People who imagine their own dreams and hallucinations are real live within their own irrational and superstitious fantasy and are seldom able to respond appropriately to real changes in their environment. People who imagine their own thoughts are real have little or no chance of discovering how reality actually operates, simply because all conclusions derived from a false premise are themselves necessarily false.

Fortunately for the human race, Galileo used simple physical experiments to prove that Aristotle and the Catholic church were completely in error. Reality does not revolve around subjective mental experience. By the end of the seventeenth century, Isaac Newton's Physics had laid the foundation for all the science which was to follow. In essence, the fact that classical physics perfectly predicts the behavior of reality is a mathematical proof that the physical realm actually is objectively real. All of the moral and technological progress humanity has achieved in the last few hundred years is directly attributable to the fact that the physical realm has always been objectively real, and that humanity has finally discovered the truth for itself. Science has conclusively proved that all subjective mental experiences arise from the neurological structures of our own living brains.

The bad news is that human immortality is simply unfounded superstition. The good news is that humanity has discovered how objective reality actually operates and we are making tremendous progress toward achieving our full potential.

Unlike philosophical and religious opinion, which can never be anything more than someone's unsubstantiated opinion, the fact that the physical realm is objectively real is not mere superstition, it is a verifiable and completely substantiated fact.

Humanity has already endured nearly two-thousand years of irrational superstition because we erroneously believed our thoughts were real. Now we know the truth -- verified absolutely -- and yes, I am deeply offended by the uneducated fools who seek to drag humanity back into the Dark Ages of religious superstition. While it is every individual's right to believe whatever he chooses, the faith of the ignorant and the knowledge of the educated each have a profound effect on the quality of the civilization we will ultimately be able to achieve. I greatly prefer a future of truth and knowledge to wallowing in superstition and ignorance, precisely because I wish to see humanity steadily advancing toward a bright and hopeful future, rather than repeating into the obvious mistakes of our superstitious past.

Answer 5

It's not that people believe things that I don't, but I find it mighty annoying when beliefs that I do not hold - beliefs that are not based upon science and fact but on intangeable belief and dogma - dictate the rules for MY life.

I want to make my own decisions about reproduction, who I choose to have sexual relations with, who I commit my life to, and at which point to stop artificial life support without interference from "believers." I do not want research that may save the lives of three of my friends with MS to be abandoned because a 2,000 year olt text might suggest it's the wrong thing to do.

It's not that you hold these beliefs, but that your beliefs have a very real impact on the lives of others when some "believers" (many non-Christians do believe in things - just not the same things) take it upon themselves to legislate their arbitrary ethics.

Sorry - I know you're just asking and I don't mean to go off on you... it just gets me pretty riled when I think that fetal stem cell research could save my friends and some ancient text is making people willing to just let them die. You ever see a good friend in excruciating pain just because she coughs? Because when her MS made her fall over in the midlle of the night, when her rib snapped in two and she couldn't keep it from being driven into her lung, it was something that a large portion of "believers" would just ignore, and I find that reprehensible... and heartbreaking.

(Edit: this "by The Glory of God" person seems just FILLED with love, huh? Schmuck.)

Answer 6

Not offended by believers who believe. I even hang out with some on a regular basis.

What I am offended by is believers who think everyone ought to believe as they do and can't imagine anything being wrong with this.

Many, many sincere believers have no idea how arrogant and presumptuous they are. They are innocent, but aggravating at the same time.

Answer 7

If a non believer is offended by believers than thats because that specific non believer is an asshole.

I don't dis-like believers, I know many religious folkn who I'm good friends with, but I hate it when religious people are ignorant too there own belief and/or really snobby and thinking they're better than the common person

Answer 8

I think it's dangerous to make broad generalizations like this. SOME non-believers are offended by people who believe just like SOME believers are offended by non-believers.

There are a percentage of people who hate those who are different from them, generally for no logical reason. Human history is filled with examples of this destructive behavior and, sadly, if it hasn't changed for thousands of years. I don't see it changing any time soon.

Answer 9

Take a look at the answer you got from the user named "By the glory of god", and you'll get some idea.

I don't mind if you believe in a god. If it makes you a better person, then go for it. I only ask a few simple things:

- you don't try to convert me or my family, or at least have the courtesy to stop when I ask. And this includes attempts to enact your beliefs as law.

- you pay for your religion yourself. No tax breaks should be given just because you're a religion.

- and above all, you don't use your religion to hide or justify bigotry, hate, crimes, etc. Doing so makes you the moral equivalent of Fred Phelps.

Answer 10

I'm not - I married a christian. If I was offended would one think I'd have done that?

Most non-believers aren't offended and don't care what you practice so long as you leave them alone and leave your dogma & doctrines out of the political/government arena.