Some atheists in this forum are pretty aggressive with believers.
Some theists are offended by atheistic dissent or the very existence of atheism. Just saying, "I don't believe what you do because I have other standards for belief" is offensive some. They frame this as attack and attempt to retaliate. It's popular to try to insult atheists by calling their beliefs a religion, or to proclaim that they don't have enough faith to be an atheist. They depict atheists as empty vessels and they like the implied threat, "You'll find out some day." Many describe atheists as inherently immoral, rebellious, and wantonly hedonistic.
But that's how their taught. Many Christians reject that depiction, but many are made atheophobic, and after reading the opinions of atheists, defensive and hostile. They want the world to know how offended they are, how hurt they are to have beliefs they consider sacred discarded as valueless by others.
I'm not looking to provoke any, but my opinions frequently do that. What's the skeptic's responsibility to such people to avoid triggering hurt and angry responses? Should I censor my responses so as to not offend the kind of theist I just described?
I don't think that is educative in any way.
I don't think that you're here to learn. You're here to preach and now to air your grievance about atheists.
Even those theists who aren't as defensive or emotional aren't usually teachable. Except when discussing young people, those that can learn already have - the so-called theistic humanists, which are the people who share the same values, methods, and agenda as the atheistic humanists, but tell you that they have a god belief and maybe even like to go to church regularly. These are the people least informed by their religions and most informed by secular education. The ones on RF are mostly scientific professionals.
But then there's the rest, and whether friendly or hostile, they are ineducable. And yes, I understand how that can cause some to become angry and take offense, but that opinion is carefully considered, sincerely believed, and constructively offered, and those that disagree are encouraged to try to falsify it if they think it's incorrect. That's what is done in academic communities, in courtrooms, and in scientific peer review, and anybody entering the marketplace of ideas in a mixed audience that includes critical thinkers will be subject to those standards. For many, it's a culture shock, and they take umbrage.
that kind of atheists change their behavior and focus on debating topics and not persons.
Most believers don't know how to debate, just to disagree with or without including their own beliefs that they cannot support. Debate involves resolving differences of opinion through dialectic, where ideas are presented and then contradicted by those who disagree, but with counterargument (rebuttal) rather than a wave of the hand or simply repeating themselves without having addressed the counterargument. Let's see how you react to this comment.
Do you know what is being asked of you or what that looks like? If not, I'll tell you. It's you explaining why something you just read there cannot be correct in your opinion as I did when rejecting your claim that theists are here to debate. Incidentally, this is me trying to educate you. Let's see how it goes from here. I'm pessimistic, but ready to be pleasantly surprised.
treating all types of people with dignity is very important. I have never denigrated any atheist on this forum or any other.
This thread was an attempt to depict atheists as rude. You said you love atheists, but you don't, at least by my humanist definition of love. Yours may vary as with the "love" shown by many who love the sinner but hate the sin, or the love of a deity that requires blood sacrifice in order to tolerate the presence of those who are willing to obey it to avoid perdition. Neither of those qualifies as love to me, and it is that context that I understand your love of atheists. Once again, however offensive you might find those words, once again, they are carefully considered, sincerely believed, and constructively offered, and you have the choice of reading them in that light or framing as a hostile attack on your sacred beliefs. Your choice.
Your views about the supernatural, from what I have seen, are repeatedly couched in the language of, "This is just what I believe, I'm not trying to convince you." I suspect that makes you less ideologically threatening to atheists than some other theists.
I agree with you about
@Sgt. Pepper's demeanor being very acceptable to a skeptical audience, but not your last words. I don't find any other poster ideologically threatening to my atheism. Her demeanor is appropriate for discussion, which is all that I require to respect her and enjoy discussion with here - not that we agree. She's not easily offended and doesn't become hostile or defensive when disagreed with. She won't be starting any threads about how offensive she finds the atheists who don't accept her claim of having engaged with the spirit world.
most atheists believe there is no God.
Not in my experience. It seems that we have one or two such strong atheists for every ten agnostic atheists. I don't believe that there is no god. Nor do I believe the opposite.
The problem for the believer is that both kinds of atheists live the same life without gods or religions and reject the claims of theists using the same arguments, so they can't tell the two apart unless they ask each atheist if he or she merely rejects the claims that gods exist (I call this unbelief) or goes further to declare that they don't exist (let's call that disbelief).
