Easter Quiz

ct: you should follow your own advice.

mark zuckerberg: don't know or care who you are. of course, you don't know me, either. And your (rude but stated anyway without manners) observations are laughably groundless. Follow your own advice. Listing ones favorite holidays, or calling a zombie a zombie, is not disrespect, no matter how ludicrously oversensitive and thin-skinned you are.

Neither did I (here). But the part you should take to heart yourself is the part about having things you ought to think in your head but not say out loud. The comment you left was far less useful or needed to be said than the one you were responding to. At least mine probably made a handful of people laugh or smile. Would have been fine just leaving it at that and not starting a debate about someone's mirthful and good-natured aside that you didn't get.

Kal, I think the reason people are getting angry is because of how you phrase things. Calling Jesus a Zombie, you should know, is going to screw some people over the top. Even if you don’t, they find that offensive, so its probably best to use just regular languages instead of calling the Bible a Fairy Tale. I respect your beliefs fully, and i hope you respect mine as a Christian, but there is no logical and 100% true proof that the Bible is fake/real. So therefore people shouldn’t be calling it a Myth.

So too in England!

I agree - never heard of fat Tuesday.

Right after the quiz I happened to get the fact: “In the United Kingdom, Fat Tuesday is known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day.” Quizmaster’s manipulating us...

it's hard keeping track of all the different conflicting (likely all equally wrong) alleged sites of events in the Jesus myth. I wasn't aware of the Garden Tomb until you mentioned it, though looking at its location on Google Maps I see that it's right next to the Falafel King where I ate several times. I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre multiple times, and also the alleged tomb of the virgin Mary and other burial sites. Including the "Tomb of King David" which we know was actually the tomb of some wealthy Roman woman.

You are the epitome of the "local man wishes atheist would stop talking about God" :) Hope you have a great holiday!

There's no mention of Thor, Baal, Quetzalcoatl, Zeus, Ganesh, or any other god in the above couple of comments. Perhaps you are yourself the epitome of the "local man wishes atheists would talk more about his imaginary friend"? (though... this is also not a phrase. Where did you get that from? Onion headline?

Anyhow, enjoy your pagan festival hunting for plastic eggs and that sort of thing.

@kalbahamut I want to say that I have no problem with atheism as I completely get where you are coming from. However, I do wish that you would stop flaunting the fact that you are “enlightened” in the way of religious ideals. Religion is not an innately bad thing, although some people have used it to hurt others. You need to understand that religion is simply an outlet for many people to bring meaning to life. Your condescending attitude towards anyone’s religious beliefs just makes your comments seem insensitive and obnoxious.

This is not to say that you were wrong to fight back against the above comment or that your beliefs are wrong. I would just like you to consider the fact that your comments can come across as extremely prejudiced towards certain groups and won’t really change anyone’s beliefs.

I mean this in the most respectful way possible. I don’t believe that you actually are insensitive or prejudiced.

1. How am I "flaunting" anything?

2. Religion is an innately bad thing. Though that's not the point of any of the comments I made on this page. Different topic.

3. Some beliefs actually are wrong. If you believe mine are, it's okay to say so. I agree with Pen Gillette on this subject: I actually find it more disrespectful when you do not.

4. I try not to be condescending toward anyone who wasn't that way to me first. Which is why I'm often mirroring their word choice and sentence structure when I do it myself, as above. I'd prefer nobody be condescending, but, when everyone's trying to be "polite" and "respectful" by not saying what they actually think... I find a lot of time what's left is this irritating "oh aren't you special" kind of condescension, which IMO is worse than just coming out and saying "hey, I think you're wrong."

5. oh yes, I'm well aware of how my comments are (mis)read by some.

6. doesn't mean that they're right. Judgment and prejudgment are different things.

7. finally... I know it's popular to say that nobody will ever change their mind on certain subjects such as religion, politics, et cetera. But... 7a. who says I'm trying to change anyone's mind? above I was just sharing what I found to be an interesting and amusing anecdote. It was a true lived experience that I had. Not an argument. and 7b. this is demonstrably false. I'm living proof. Surely it was not a single Internet comment I read that led to me fundamentally changing my beliefs. But... a large collection of them I'm sure at least contributed to that. People do change their minds, and different points of view are valuable. especially the ones that make us uncomfortable to hear because they challenge our own prejudices.

Part of my point is that neither I nor you can absolutely prove or disprove the existence of God, so because of my reservations about God and the church, I cannot tell you that you are wrong. You are absolutely allowed to share your opinion, I just feel that you often go about it the wrong way. Additionally, I want to say that I appreciate your anecdotes as I have never had the opportunity to leave the country so it allows me some insight to what the rest of the world is like. Lastly, I absolutely believe that people’s opinions change; however, I find that it is mostly based upon personal experiences.

I clearly said I "try not to be." Stop strawmanning me. I know that's all you've got, but still, it's both annoying and unproductive.

You perceiving something as disrespectful doesn't make something disrespectful. The patently ridiculous fairy tales you believe in earnestly are not owed awed reverence by anyone, no matter how much you may wish to demand this from everyone. Pointing out that something that is ridiculous is ridiculous is not disrespectful. It might hurt your feelings or put you on the defensive; this is not the same thing. What above did I say that you erroneously believe was "disrespectful?" The (accurate) choice to use the word "myth?" Was that it? Do you really want to come across as this much of a snowflake? Do you also think we should stop using A.D. and B.C. to avoid hurting people's feelings? Or stop saying Merry Christmas to avoid offending people who don't celebrate the holiday, even if it is Christmas? That's the road you are on.

As I said above, I find it FAR more disrespectful (as in, actually disrespectful, as opposed to not at all) to try and tiptoe around things like this because your opinion of other people is so low that you think they might get upset or angry or be hurt by reading something true. If I start doing that, and I stop saying what is accurate and factual, merely to avoid triggering responses from you or others like you, that will be the time that you know my opinion of you has sunk so low that I've lost all respect for you. It will definitely not be out of a growing respect.

Up until that point, as long as I keep saying true things and describing my own experiences honestly and matter-of-factly, that means I still have some respect for you because I still believe that you can handle it. But go on, keep trying to change my mind.

final pro tip: separate out your own identity from your beliefs. Just because someone else believes something different from you does NOT mean that they have disrespected YOU as a person, or that you have been personally attacked. Divest your ego from your beliefs and opinions. They can exist independently from one another. I recall discovering the same thing myself when I first started using the Internet. I was around 13 years old.

This Person: Says they aren’t Disrespecting anything

Also This Person: Calls Bible Stories a “Fairy Tale”

Me: Visible Confusion

No, it's definitely a thing in the Methodist church.

The Orthodox Church has their own version of it, though it takes place on different dates.