Atheist Tuesday Quiz: Are you loving or unloving?

Take the test. No cheating. No peeking on your neighbor’s paper. This is a great examination thought up from our friends over at Defending. Contending.

Here’s a quick and simple six-question quiz to determine whether you’re loving (“tolerant”) or unloving (close minded and “intolerant”).

  1). You’re sitting in a coffee shop when a woman at another table gets up–leaving her coffee unattended–to get a napkin. As she does, a man walks by her table, pours a powdered substance into the woman’s coffee and quickly exits the shop. You immediately warn this woman of what just happened. Your reaction is:

A. Loving

B. Unloving. This is none of your business. Quit interfering with other people’s lives.

2). A small child runs toward a bush to retrieve his ball that rolled into it. You know that the bush contains a rattlesnake nest. You yell out for the kid to stop. Your yelling at this child is:

A. Loving

B. Unloving. Who are you to impose your beliefs onto this kid. His parents have a right to raise him how they see fit without your close-minded “snakes are bad” views being forced down his throat.

Take the rest of the test by clicking here.

 

Comments (58)

  1. vintango2k

    Reply

    Cute. But it just hits upon the classic appeal to emotion argument, without facts and evidence that point to testable, concordant, and emperical conclusions about reality how do you expect anyone to take the question posed in number 6, seriously?

    • Schmader

      Reply

      Question: How many atheists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

      Answer: None! If given a choice atheists prefer to dwell in the darkness!

      • Felix

        Funny, the version I’ve heard is: Two! One to screw in the bulb and one to guard it from believers who want to destroy the light.

      • Ryk

        Ah Schmader you are being a bigot, are you going to tell black jokes next, or maybe some hoophobic humor.

      • BathTub

        Yep remember folks, Steve has plenty of time to mock spelling mistakes, but no time to answer your questions.

      • Hi BathTub! I said hello to you on Facebook but you didn’t reply back! You sure look a lot younger than you write. Nice beard, too!

      • Also, BathTub, I have some time to answer questions, I just don’t want to any more. After almost 3 years at my blog you already know my answers. Why should I bother?

        That’s called a waste of time….

        I’ll let God deal with you.

      • That’s called a waste of time….

        1 Peter 3:15
        Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

      • Nohm

        Hi Steve,

        You wrote: “<i.After almost 3 years at my blog you already know my answers.”

        While I understand that this was directed to BathTub, I’ve been here longer than that (I think… right?) and yet I don’t know your answers; that’s why I ask questions. If I thought I knew the answer, I wouldn’t ask the question; I try to stay away from “gotcha” questions, because I tend to look arrogant when people answer in a way I didn’t expect.

        In addition, “knowing” your answer, when I don’t know your answer, would likely result in failed mind-reading on my part, and I think you know how I feel about doing that.

        If it’s your decision to not answer my questions, there’s no way I can make you answer them, so all I can do is shrug and accept it. I would ask that you consider at least answering the questions that I present that you find interesting to answer.

        Thank you.

      • BathTub

        Sorry Steve Facebook didn’t highlight your message so I missed it.

        Some questions yes I know the answers to, that’s specifically why I ask, many cases it’s to see how you lie to yourself and others to avoid answering them.

        Other questions I no I don’t know, and many people here don’t.

        For example I have asked what method you used to determine which bible was the right one. I don’t believe you’ve ever answered that here.

        Another would be “Given your admission that you know your evangelism is not effective why do you squander your built in unbeliever audience and refuse to attempt to improve your evangelism methods?”

        If you met some Spanish speakers would you shout at them endlessly in English about how they were murders, psychopaths and liars, pat yourself on the back and leave, or would you make an genuine attempt to learn how to converse with them so that you could share the gospel with them?

        WEM I am amazed Steve didn’t censor your use of the bible, he hates it when unbelievers point out that he isn’t following the bible.

      • WEM I am amazed Steve didn’t censor your use of the bible, he hates it when unbelievers point out that he isn’t following the bible.

        Deep down, Steve knows his conscience has convicted him. Not me.

  2. Reply

    Hmm… let’s see.

    In questions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 not acting would very likely cause harm. You can recognise this through prior knowledge, logic and previous experience. The potential victim(s) can also recognise this via the same methods. It is also very unlikely that the victim(s) in these questions have already been warned.

    In question 6, not acting will only cause harm if you are correct in your beliefs: beliefs reached through faith, which are not shared with the victims. The victim has also very likely already been warned: the tenants of fundamentalist christianity are hardly obscure knowledge.

    The first 5 questions are inaccurate analogies. An accurate analogy would be as follows:

    You’re sitting in a coffee shop when a woman at another table gets up–leaving her coffee unattended–to get a napkin. As she does, you are convinced through faith that a man poured a powdered substance into the woman’s coffee and exited the shop. You didn’t actually see the man, but you emphatically insist it happened. Worried, the woman asks the store manager if she can see the video from the security camera’s. He allows this, and they reveal nothing, but you continue to insist it happened anyway. You continue to loudly insist on this even as she drinks her coffee, eventually making her uncomfortable enough to leave the coffee shop. Were your actions…

    A. Loving

    B. Annoying and unwanted

    (Of course, when you’re dealing with a skeptic, the woman then goes out of her way to forensically test the coffee for any trace of narcotics, dark-lights the floor looking for footprints, and asks you to undergo a drug test and a psychiatric test to rule out the possiblity of hallucinogens or paranoid-delusional tendencies…)

    • Nohm

      Reply

      I’ll also note that the sixth question says that it is directed towards a “friend”, which again means that it’s not analogous to the other five questions (which were directed towards strangers).

      In other words, #6 is not analogous to #1-5.

    • Glenn Parker

      Reply

      I think we can make it even more realistic!

      The woman insists on seeing the video evidence, but of course there’s no camera. So, the woman states emphatically that unless you can produce titration test results on the coffee, she’s not buying your story. So she keeps drinking, humming loudly to herself to drown out your warnings until her throat seizes. In horror, she realizes she’s dying, but of course it’s too late!

      • “The woman insists on seeing the video evidence, but of course there’s no camera.”

        Hmmm… no camera? That would only be true if your religon made no testable claims whatsoever. But it does (well, okay, christianity in general doesn’t but your specific variation does). Your ‘literal’ interpretation of the bible claims Adam and Eve existed, that the earth is no older than humanity, and that Noah’s flood actually happened. The ‘camera’ to all these events is the geology and structure of the world, and it shows no signs of your mysterious coffee poisoner.

        “So, the woman states emphatically that unless you can produce titration test results on the coffee, she’s not buying your story.”

        Funny, in my experience it’s more often the skeptics performing the metaphorical titration tests, while the fundamentalists stand in the background shouting at them not to drink the coffee, but not actually doing anything to prove it’s poisoned. So far the tests have consistently come up negative. Make of that what you will.

        “… until her throat seizes. In horror, she realizes she’s dying, but of course it’s too late!”

        At what point did this stop being a metaphor and become a snuff story?

      • vintango2k

        I do give credit to Glenn despite his points being consistently and well refuted at least he keeps trying.

  3. Ryk

    Reply

    Yeah I answered A to all of them. I mean 6 is never going to come up because, hell is just a fantasy, but if it were real I would totally encourage people to avoid it. Also are you loving enought to encourage people to pray towards Mecca several times a day so that they can avoid Muslim hell. Or how about telling your friends to die in battle to avoid Hel. Also you should definitely eat lots of pasta lest the FSM condemn you to spaghetti hell, where the beer is warm and the dancers less pretty than the ones in spaghetti heaven.

  4. Steve L.

    Reply

    I answered A. loving, to every question!
    I am an extremely loving and tolerant person!

  5. Nohm

    Reply

    Five of these questions have something in common that the other question (#6) does not have:

    An agreement by all parties that the threat exists.

    Replace #6 with the equivalent question for Scientology, dealing with body thetans and auditing. It’s loving to drag you to a purification rundown, right?

    What? You disagree??

  6. Steve L.

    Reply

    Fortunately, I don’t believe in the fictitious Hells you’ve described; only the one true Hell that awaits those that reject the gracious offer of The Savour!

    He is loving and tolerant and waits patiently for all those who will come.

    • Ryk

      Reply

      I don’t believe in fictitious hells either Steve. Including the one you choose to believe in.

      However by the logic of this test we would both be unloving for not warning people about hells whether we believe in them or not.

  7. Ryk

    Reply

    7. Your friend has a family of undetectable leprechauns living in his left nostril.
    You know that if he does not bribe them, by shoving Skittles up his nose, they will curse him with leprechaun magic.

    Do you

    A) Lovingly encourage him to fill his nose with candy.
    Or
    B) Mind your own business and let him get turned into a goat or something.

    • vintango2k

      Reply

      8. You see a woman walking down the street. You know at this very moment the government is using their secret spy satellites to read the thoughts in her head and implant new ones into her brain that will make her kill.

      Do you…

      A) Lovingly encourage her to wear a tin foil hat like you are?
      Or
      B) Mind your own business, what’s one more person being controlled by the government amongst many, she probably won’t be the one assigned to attack you even though you know the government is out to get you, that’s the job of the celebrity you’re currently stalking, the voices coming through the TV warned you about that already.

      • Your friends child has started acting up and throwing tantrums. You know this is because the kid has been replaced with a changeling and taken into the forest, to be raised by the elves who love the laughter of children, for they cannot laugh themselves. In order to save your friends family, you go into the forest on the winter solstice and sacrifice a goat painted with the pure blood of a newborn sparrow. Are your actions:

        A. Loving.

        B. Unloving. After all, it’s not your business if your friends family wants to try and raise the changeling. If it makes them and the elves happy, what’s the harm? Well… except for on it’s 16th birthday, when it morphs into it’s true form and eats everyone’s faces. But aside from that, what’s the harm?

    • Schmader

      Reply

      9.

      Your atheist friend is obsessed with Jessica Alquist. He tells you that he wants to devote a blog to her. You inform him his obsession with a 17-year-old faux-activist is unhealthy and morally questionable. Your actions are:

      1. Loving.

      2. Unloving. You don’t say a word and wait until your atheist friend starts blogging about Jessica Alquist. You then email the blog’s address to Chris Hansen. Who are you to introduce morality to an atheist? If your friend complains that he got in trouble just tell him “C’est la vie.”

      • Ryk

        Oh and you should probably look up “faux” in the dictionary, it doesn’t mean what you think it does.

      • Schmader

        What do you think faux means Ryk? How am I using it wrong?

      • Ryk

        Faux means fake or atificial, that is hardly applicable here, regardleas of whether it is a female child like Jessica (which seems to be what you are focusing on) or anyone else, an activist is someone active for a cause, the first ammendment in this case, Jessica was, she also won which makes her an effective activist. I assumed that is what you thought faux meant.

      • Beth Renee

        Schmader

        Jessica Ahlquist’s daddy must be in hog heaven. Everyone believes that his daughter is an atheist activist and he won’t have to pay a dime for her college tuition thanks to the hoards of, ahem, side cough, “generous” atheist men aka “ahlquist fanboys” who have donated money to her future.

      • BathTub

        You are certainly more obsessed with Jessica than anyone else here Schmader.

      • perdita

        …hoards of, ahem, side cough, “generous” atheist men aka “ahlquist fanboys””

        Beth, I truly hope you’re our regular troll writing under a new name, because that’s a disgusting claim you’re making.

        But let me guess, a 17 year-old Christian girl would be making her own decisions and be brave for standing up for her rights, while a 17 year-old atheist must be a puppet of her parents. Christians motivated to help a 17 year-old Christian girl would be doing it from purity of heart while atheists motivated to help a 17 year-old atheist are just really pedos.

        Steve, is denigrating your enemies now one of the those fruits we’re supposed to find in True Christians?

      • Ryk

        What is it with all the Christian types obsessrd with this, little girl you are the ones always mentioning her.

        Also how does it mattet if her father supported her in this? I just watched one of videos where he has his daughters out evangelizing with him. Would you call them ,”faux” Christians because their dad aided and encouraged them. I wouldn’t.

        Besides from the little I have read of the case, ironicly on Christian news blogs, she is a constitutional activist not an atheist one. It seems she is an atheist but her cause is civil rights.

      • vintango2k

        I had never even heard of her before Schmader mentioned her on an earlier post

      • Pam Hawley

        Jessica Ahlquist is a phony. Her father knew that atheists couldn’t resist supporting the plight of a young suffering atheist *wink*. Atheists you have been duped again. You walked into Baskin Robbins and asked for a double dupe of gullible gus ice cream.

      • Ryk

        Pam why are you bearing false witness against this girl and her father? I understand that you believe you are saved but should you not at least try to follow your dieties commands. I agree that according to your holy book works such as following the commandments will not earn you salvation but one would think if somone truly loved their God they would honor him by trying.

        Also I fail to see how a father supporting his child in doing good works renders those works phony. My daughter raises money for Ronald McDonald house, I have supported and aided her in this. Does that make her work phony? Are the families of sick children helped less because she has her fathers support.

        Steve clearly loves his daughters and teaches them to be evangelists. If they become evangelists when they are older will they be phony because their father helps and teaches them.

        Lastly why would it matter if this did make Ms. Alquist “phony” what she accomplished is real. We are all slightly more free and secure in our rights because of what she did. In the future as Islam becomes more dominant in our country you will have her to thank, that the schools are not adorned with banners instructin children to honor Allah.

      • vintango2k

        Sound the alarm! The trolls have landed! The trolls have landed! Hide your drama ladies and gentlemen.

      • Donald "The Dog" Allen

        Atheists please!

        perdita – It isn’t “denigration” if what is said is true.

        ryk – It isn’t “bearing false witness” if someone is expressing an opinion.

        The Ahlquist dad has puppet master written all over his face. He is the true activist.

        bathtub – The men at the atheist website used to talk about her a lot.

        Beth – LOL @ “fanboys”

      • BathTub

        Well Dog I will bow to your greater knowledge of The Atheist Website.

      • perdita

        perdita – It isn’t “denigration” if what is said is true.

        ryk – It isn’t “bearing false witness” if someone is expressing an opinion.

        Really, Donald. So, if your true opinion is that your neighbor is cheating on his wife and you tell all your other neighbors – and in reality your neighbor isn’t cheating on his wife – you actually haven’t been bearing false witness?
        You can’t be wrong because your opinion trumps reality?

        And Donald, it is denigration because it’s an opinion that seems to be based only on not liking what this girl did. If all the players were the same and the only difference was that Alquist was fighting for keeping the prayer up and her dad supported her in the same way, would you still think she was being a puppet? I highly doubt that. If Christians were talking about a young Christian activist, would you single out the men and smear them in the same way that’s being done here? I doubt you would.

  8. Ryk

    Reply

    I just noticed that you use loving and tolerant asynonyms. Why? Serious question I am not being snarky here.

    Being tolerant is often a good thing, but I would not call it loving. Tolerance is treating people with the minimum consideration they deserve. It is accepting behaviors and traits you do not like, because you respect that persons liberty. This is, as I said, often a good thing and important to a free society, but loving?

    Maybe it is but I would enjoy hearing why you think the terms are synonymous. Not that therevis anything wrong if you do, in fact it seems nice, it is just unusual.

    • Reply

      I just noticed that you use loving and tolerant asynonyms. Why?
      It’s a good question, because there are lots of examples of where tolerance is the opposite of loving.

      • vintango2k

        WEM brings up a good point, I suppose you’d really have to assess each case of tolerance individually. If you’re in a situation where you’re essentially tolerating intolerance I can see how that wouldn’t really be considered loving. That sort of situation inevitably leads to conflict however, at least from what I’ve observed in the past and am currently observing at work currently. Its interesting to be a third party observer on conversations between an atheist, a homosexual, and a Christian conservative homophobe.

    • vintango2k

      Reply

      I’d say it can be synonymous with loving because the opposite, intolerance, is considered hateful. If you constantly are trying to impress your values and world views onto people without justifying why they are truer or better than the ones they currently have, that is considered intolerant and to a 3rd party observer sometimes hateful. If you can see care for someone, help them, befriend them, and genuinely respect their right to disagree despite the challenge of it, you could be considered a patient, caring, or possibly even loving individual. I don’t necessarily agree with the loving label but I can see where it could be grouped in with tolerance.

      • Ryk

        I get where you are coming from, I think tolerance can be loving but is not synonymous with it. Most of the A answers are loving but not tolerant necessarily, not saying they are intolerant, just that tolerance is not the virtue being hivhlighted . Also the B answers seem to be mocking the very idea of tolerance as if the writer considets it to not be a virtue at all.

      • I’d say it can be synonymous with loving because the opposite, intolerance, is considered hateful.

        key word in the above sentence is CAN, because tolerance can also be considered the opposite of loving.

        Take a guy on the street you’ve just spotted shooting heroin. Let’s say you confront him with this, and say that he should take better care of himself (or something else similar). He tells you to mind your own business, and after a few more exchanges like this, you leave him alone. Tolerance.

        Now imagine that it’s your 16 year old son you’ve just caught doing this. Would you consider leaving him be if he told you to mind your own business? Would you do everything in your power to get him to stop shooting heroin, including having him jailed or wrestling the syringe out of his hands? Of course you would. Intolerance.

        Tolerance and love are NOT synonymous. They merely happen to occasionally coincide

  9. Ryk

    Reply

    I have another sincere question for Steve. As works (other than repentance) can not earn salvation, only trust in Christ. Is there any reason for saved folk to not lie or murdet?

      • theB1ackSwan

        You should probably tell that to the rest of the Christians on this blog (namely Schmader, Beth, and Pam). While you’re at it, if you’d like to call out Ray for plagiarizing a poem, that’d be okay too.

  10. Ryk

    Reply

    Ah censored some more, why do you fear truth so much that you must hide from it.

    • Reply

      It’s the constant negative, snarky, disrespectful attitude, Ryk. There’s too much of that already in the world. I can limit it at this blog. Be thankful that I allow any of your posts. It’s a privilege for the atheists to be here. Remember that. Treat the believers here with respect, like Nohm and perdita do, and you will be allowed.

      This also applies to the believers; they get “censored,” too.

      And I’m certainly not afraid of the truth. If I were, I wouldn’t post my articles.

      Thanks for your understanding.

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