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Do you consider atheists as your brothers and sisters?

We all know that religious people consider people following their religion as brothers and sisters. So what about us? Ideally I would like to say all humans are my brothers and sisters, but because religious people consider only members of their religion as brothers, I too am forced to think that only non-religious people are my brothers and sisters.I am deeply hurt to know that atheists are oppressed, discriminated and killed in some countries(specially in muslim countries whereas in an officially atheist country like China muslims can practice their religion and more importantly live).Oppression, discrimination and killing of atheists is like oppression, discrimination and killing of my brothers which makes me very sad and fills me with anger and desire of taking revenge no matter even if it requires me to be a suicide bomber i definitely will.(specially in Saudi Arabia if there is a terror attack which makes them realise that atheists have feelings too and if for the fear of more attacks they stop killing atheists then i think it is not wrong)It's like in a movie, a gang kidnaps hero's girlfriend and then hero somehow manages to get hold of the gang's leader. If the gang threatens to kill hero's girlfriend, the hero threatens to kill their leader. Then there is a exchange. The gang releases his girlfriend and the hero releases their leader. Or something like China telling Saudi Arabia to stop killing atheists there, or it will kill muslims in China. It is better for all to live peacefully and have tolerance towards all. But sadly fundamental religious societies don't have tolerance for atheists.We are all humans but religion has filled many with hate in the name of god. I am very peaceful and would like this world to be very peaceful, but when i hear about discrimination,killing of atheists then i forget all my humanism. If theists kill us how can we be humanly with them? If i became a suicide bomber i will be called a terrorist, but for me i am not. America criticizes China for it's restrictions on freedom of expression, but why not it tells Saudi Arabia to stop beheading atheists? Killing atheists is not a crime? Theists(muslims,christains) have a commandment thou shall not kill. But looks like that commandment is not applicable if the person being killed is an atheist because he is god's enemy. Ha! god can't kill his enemies, so he has his children to do his job!Well,don't christains believe that jesus told them to love their enemies?Well, looks like only if the enemy is a brother(christain), he should be loved and not god's enemies. The UN must pressurise muslim countries to decriminalise atheism. So humanists over here what have you to say? Can you give humanism for receiving death? Am I an extremist? Yes and No.Yes if it is a fight for our survival and rights i can take extreme steps.No if it is about enforcing my non-belief on others. As an atheist i am broad-minded and open to your opinions and ideas.

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Permalink Reply by Sonny Mobley on June 13, 2010 at 1:35pm

Only in the way that all people, theist or otherwise are my brother's and sister's.

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Permalink Reply by Herk on June 13, 2010 at 4:33pm

When some priest wants me to call him, 'father,' I can only laugh. He's not my father. And the honorific is ludicrous. Here's a man who's celibate and who wants to be called by something he could, or should, never be.

Likewise with the whole brother and sister crap. You aren't my brother. You aren't my sister. If you were my real brother and you weren't an atheist, I'd kick your behind, you sod. How could you be so unthinking, et bleeding cetera. Truth is, brothers and sisters aren't always all that loving.

Sure, we long for solidarity. I'd rather follow Hitchen's use of 'comrade' than misapply common words that mean something else. "My atheist friends," works, too.

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Permalink Reply by Wiley Coyote on June 14, 2010 at 8:56am

It takes more than just having something in common for me to think of someone as family.
I do have friends that I consider "family", but most of them are theists. My best friend whom I regularly refer to as my brother or my "bro" has been my closest friend since 1981 when we met at Catholic school. We don't share the same views on religion, sports and many other things. We don't have to agree on everything in order to respect and value one another. It's more about the history we've shared together.

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Permalink Reply by The Derch on June 15, 2010 at 1:49pm

Yes I do

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Permalink Reply by Johannes S. on June 15, 2010 at 3:46pm

Not brothers and sisters, but nearly. You are people I understand, rational and intelligent people. And I like rational people, intelligent people and people I can understand. So in a way, yes.

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Permalink Reply by Dheeraj on June 15, 2010 at 9:47pm

No Bull. This is survival of the fittest.

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Permalink Reply by funk Q on June 15, 2010 at 10:36pm

No, I don't consider atheists as my brothers and sisters. From what I've observed atheists are more like schoolyard gangs, which bully and terrorise anybody who isn't a part of their clique, than they are siblings.

We have humanists, brights, secularists, freethinkers, apatheists, agro-atheists, spiritual atheists, pantheist atheists, buddhist atheists etc, etc. Each group has an agenda, dogma or opinion which fellow members agree to and it seems that, at one time or another, someone is attacking or deriding a faction of atheism or an individual because they hold different views.

I suppose this is like the rivalry in some brother/sister relationships where one sector claims to be better at denying god(s) than another. It's all good harmless fun to aggressively belittle, berate, insult and condemn others because their opinion differs from another's.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Thompson on June 16, 2010 at 6:03am

Even when I was religious I never considered people as "brothers and sisters". In the way that they mean it we are cousins. The problem is that we are all, religious and non-religious alike, cousins and religion divides people into "us and them." We ought to spend less time figuring out how to divide ourselves and more time figuring out how to unite ourselves.

There is nothing wrong with camaraderie but I would prefer to avoid co-opting words that signify a biological relationship that does not exist.

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Permalink Reply by Charles on June 16, 2010 at 1:51pm

I can relate to the atheist where I can not with the religious.

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Permalink Reply by ryan cameron on June 16, 2010 at 6:02pm

my "brothers and sisters" are, by extension, all life that shares a common ancestor with me. Thats how I see it. Earth is our mother, and her mother is the Milky way galaxy whose progenitor is the universe ... etc. Its not flakey, its important to see us, everything as connected so we can remain empathetic and realize we all "belong" the second we begin to exist.