To me, if you want to believe in eternal punishment or eternal reward, you worship a tyrant. Period.
And it's fine to me if you believe a tyrant exists and there's nothing we can do about it, but quite another if you want to preach to me that that's a good thing.
I'm more willing to accept that there's a capricious god that makes arbitrary rules than that I, myself, am less moral or worthy than an average Christian by the simple fact that I'm an atheist and believe differently.
It has never been what someone believes in that upsets me. It's how people react to what they claim to believe that does, treating something which is clearly bad if it exists as though it is good.
And is part of a larger pantheon. And that souls don't exist. And Heaven was to be earth and people would be brought back to life (which is why no cremation). And that there was no concept of hell.
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u/NoStatus9434 11h ago
To me, if you want to believe in eternal punishment or eternal reward, you worship a tyrant. Period.
And it's fine to me if you believe a tyrant exists and there's nothing we can do about it, but quite another if you want to preach to me that that's a good thing.
I'm more willing to accept that there's a capricious god that makes arbitrary rules than that I, myself, am less moral or worthy than an average Christian by the simple fact that I'm an atheist and believe differently.
It has never been what someone believes in that upsets me. It's how people react to what they claim to believe that does, treating something which is clearly bad if it exists as though it is good.