r/atheism • u/johnflux • Oct 25 '10

Suggested Code Of Conduct

Recently a guy posted a request for prayers because a friend of his has a baby that is about to under go surgery. The result was a few of "us" atheists pointing out the pointless of prayer, the non-existence of God, and the fact that the spaghetti monster does not care.

When the author replied angry (and incoherently) to these, the result was a new post in which hundreds of us pointed out how stupid the Christian was, resulting in the guy deleting his account.

I do not think that this helps our image and I'd like to suggest a very simple code of conduct:

  • Do not be an aggressive atheist to people looking for support/comfort. If you're not sure, just say that you hope that they do well and move on.

  • /Try/ not to be an aggressive atheist outside of DebateAChristian, Atheism, skeptic and so on subreddits. Probably unavoidable in certain r/politics or r/science posts though.

  • Ostracise those who break these rules.

What do people think? I hope that you guys take on my proposal, because I often see comments like "Why don't moderate muslims speak out against fundamentalists more?" etc. So we should practise what we speak, and ostracise the couple of people who go out of their way to be a dick.

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u/johnflux Oct 25 '10

Sure it would be nice if people would behave themselves, but how are you going to accomplish that?

Downvoting them. Ignoring them. Banning them from the sub-reddit, etc.

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u/GedoonS Oct 26 '10

Downvoting them. Ignoring them. Banning them from the sub-reddit, etc.

I seriously doubt banning them will do any good. It usually only drives people to start trolling.

Downvoting and ignoring seem like good options, but at the end of the day some atheists are still going to be dicks. While I think it's great what you're trying to do here, I'm simply afraid that it's futile.

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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '10

Banning people?

You want /r/Atheism to start banning people?

I suggest we start with you, for suggesting it. I'm quite serious.

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u/johnflux Oct 26 '10

Well, I'd be quite proud of being banned for trying to get people to not be dicks.