[jlgaddis]

A few months ago, I was on the losing end of a head-on motorcycle versus Jeep Cherokee crash and spent several days in the hospital. I had some pretty severe injuries but somehow managed to not smash my head in -- I don't wear a helmet and, although I had several broken bones, I somehow escaped with only had a few cuts and scrapes to my head.

Several of the doctors and nurses said (words to the effect of) "someone upstairs must have been looking out for you". I'm an athiest and I get really annoyed when people say such things but, at the time, the best way I could think of to respond was to simply keep my mouth shut and not respond at all, so I said nothing.

It was about the fourth or fifth person who made such a remark when I finally went off. "Oh!? Well why the fk wasn't he looking out for me a few seconds earlier? He could have stopped that Jeep from turning in front of me -- but he didn't, did he? Get out of here with your religious bullsh*t!"

I really hate to be like that or respond to people that way but I just couldn't take it anymore. Apparently, however, "the word spread" as not one more person said anything even remotely similar to me the rest of the time I was there.

(Similar/related: all the "praying for you" comments posted to my Facebook page. I responded to those with something along the lines of "I don't believe in God so don't waste your time praying but, if you must, pray for the doctors who are operating on me instead.")

[mseebach]

> "Oh!? Well why the fk wasn't he looking out for me a few seconds earlier? He could have stopped that Jeep from turning in front of me -- but he didn't, did he? Get out of here with your religious bullsh*t!"

So supposedly you were the rational party to the exchange, yet you failed to see that people (although you don't share their exact worldview) were just trying to be nice and went full-on asshole in return. No wonder the word spread quickly.

I'm not religious, but I have enough empathy to understand that when someone says "god bless" or similar, it's meant sincerely, and I care much more about a world in which strangers are sincere to each other than one where everybody understands there is no god.

[Confusion]

  I'm an athiest and I get really annoyed when people say such things [..]

Why? You make it sound like you think that's an entirely reasonable response, but as a fellow atheist: I don't think it is. Why not just say 'Thanks'?

[lmm]

It can lead to a very dangerous fatalism. If you think it's in God's hands whether you survive a crash, why wear a seatbelt?

More generally I get annoyed when someone says something false, even if I can't immediately see what mistakes it's going to lead them to make. My experience is that even the most benign-seeming of errors can cause problems sooner or later.

[PavlovsCat]

> Why not just say 'Thanks'?

> It can lead to a very dangerous fatalism.

I know I'm quoting out of context, but I had to.

> My experience is that even the most benign-seeming of errors can cause problems sooner or later.

But of course you don't mean the mistake of mistaking a genuine attempt to be friendly for something to be indignated about. No, when someone speaks from their position into your life, that is not okay. If you speak from your position into theirs, it's super objective and correct, and to downvote them into oblivion is a perfectly adequate response. Who here would care if they're hellbanned? Just another peddler of religious beliefs, nuke them.

Oh, but as Bill Hicks said: Newsflash, you're dead too. Mistakes lead to a bad outcome, so does perfection. So I don't quite get the posturing.

We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing. -- Charles Bukowski

Yet from what I can tell, not believing in a particular fairy tale doesn't mean that every single thing you otherwise hold true isn't a fairy tale as well. It doesn't take a lot of science or introspection to realize that, does it? When people say "Planet Earth" instead if exactly describing the configuration of all matter and energy in the universe, does that make you angry, too?

[lmm]

> But of course you don't mean the mistake of mistaking a genuine attempt to be friendly for something to be indignated about

Projecting much? I never said anything about being indignant; it annoys me, or maybe saddens is a more appropriate term, but that doesn't mean I respond in anger. Pretending you think someone's right when they've just said something wrong may be the easy way out, but being truly friendly requires being more honest (and sure, sometimes it turns out it was you who was wrong all along).

> Who here would care if they're hellbanned?

I think HN's hellbanning is a terrible practice, I've said so repeatedly, and if you have any suggestions for how I could prevent it then I'd genuinely welcome them. But I don't think "don't downvote anyone" is a good response.

> Yet from what I can tell, not believing in a particular fairy tale doesn't mean that every single thing you otherwise hold true isn't a fairy tale as well. It doesn't take a lot of science or introspection to realize that, does it? When people say "Planet Earth" instead if exactly describing the configuration of all matter and energy in the universe, does that make you angry, too?

I'm not perfect, and I never will be. That doesn't mean I shouldn't try to become better.

[PavlovsCat]

I am sorry, I expressed myself very badly. I didn't mean to jump at you for the votes etc., but the general reaction to that post really astonished and saddened me.

And when I said "posturing", I was not even just thinking of this thread, but general delusions about being objective. I can see being "more objective", but even that will always be vague, and I think "objective, period" is out of the reach of anything within the universe. Simply because it's in and part of it. Yes, I get that religious stuff can be annoying, but so is thinking you're suddenly sooo objective just because you're not religious... On the scale between subjective and objective, the needle doesn't even visibly move, so to speak.

When someone expresses genuine condolences in an awkward way, a huge drama over religion and calling that person basically evil and wrong is kinda tragic. Like petty fights at a funeral. But you shouldn't be the scapegoat for that, just like that Indian poster shouldn't be the scapegoat for pushy religious people they were mistaken for.

General idea: If someone says something that means something nice in their culture, but means "asshole" in the one of the listener, they still said something nice, it's just misunderstood. Each knowing the culture of the other better would fix that. That's how I see it, anyway.

[Confusion]

Getting annoyed and telling people off doesn't result in fewer instances of dangerous fatalism, because that is not a very effective way of convincing people. It may as well have the opposite effect: "See, God is great, he even takes care of this smug bastard"

Similarly, getting annoyed when people say something false doesn't result in fewer problems, as you are unlikely to communicate in an effective way when annoyed and are unlikely to convince anyone of the falsehood. Again, it may well have the opposite effect: the non-occurrence of armageddon never dissuades a cult of their beliefs, but rather makes them stronger.

And if you say something like "Well, they should listen if they know what's good for them", then you show that the rationalization of your behavior is just a facade. Then you are not truly interested in preventing problems. If you were, you would try to be effective, not just right.

[bostonpete]

> it can lead to a very dangerous fatalism. If you think it's in God's hands whether you survive a crash, why wear a seatbelt?

This seems like a red herring. I'm not a religious person, but the notion that it's possible for a divine power to influence human affairs doesn't necessarily imply the absence of free will.

Do you have evidence of this dangerous fatalism? Other than the tiny percentage of fanatics who want to be martyrs, I don't consider religious folks to be an especially reckless bunch.

[lmm]

No, I don't have a study or anything, this is just personal experience.

> Other than the tiny percentage of fanatics who want to be martyrs, I don't consider religious folks to be an especially reckless bunch.

You see a more subtle form in the conservatism that goes with religion; many religions oppose positive social changes, and I think that's partly because of the assumption that nothing could be truly wrong with the world the way it is today.

[philsnow]

> It can lead to a very dangerous fatalism. If you think it's in God's hands whether you survive a crash, why wear a seatbelt?

Hand-wavey answer: something about the devil tempting Jesus to jump from the top of the temple because why not ? since he's the son of god obviously big daddy will save him right ? Then Jesus says something about not "testing" God.

[lmm]

Sure, there are arguments. But there are arguments for a lot of things in the Bible, and very smart, very knowledgeable people still disagree about what it prescribes. My experience is that if you base your decision-making on reading the bible and doing what you think it says, sooner or later you'll do something bad. (If you follow the advice of a major church you're less likely to do obviously bad things, but IMO the social/political policies religions tend to advocate are also bad, though in more subtle ways)

[code_duck]

It sounds from the tale that jlgaddis tried to be polite and eventually lost his patience.

[jlgaddis]

Indeed. Most of the other commenters here seemed to have missed that.

[MartinCron]

As a fellow atheist and motorcyclist, may I suggest that you start wearing a helmet? I mean, when there's no afterlife to look forward to, you should probably wear the appropriate safety gear.

[chinpokomon]

As a former motorcyclist, don't squid!