An In Depth Look at the Religion of Calling Atheism a Religion

Behind the scenes of this insidious cult.

What do you mean, “Religion of Calling Atheism a Religion”?

The religion of calling atheism a religion (or more easily known as the ROCAR) is a very insidious cult with an agenda of destroying people, families, and communities. Offshoots include calling secularism, humanism, evolution, naturalism, materialism, rationalism, and related religions.

Don’t religions need to have gods and such?

In the ROCAR’s case, it’s quite confusing, but then, the ROCAR is very secretive while being quite angry. Some denominations are ensnared by pure rage, others unbridled insanity. Some say their true god is the legendary “atheist senpai”, who is said will never notice them.

The rituals that ROCARians engage in are quite the same, however: call atheism a religion on whatever media they can as often as they can.

How do people become victims of the ROCAR?

People fall into the ROCAR for various reasons. The ROCAR has grafted itself onto several existing religions and ideologies to maintain adherents, and often co-exists quite well with other bad ideas such as flat-earther syndrome, anti-vax pox, and so on.

Pathologies of the ROCAR

The ROCAR promotes a very deep level of sociopathic attitudes and behaviors. Like many cults, they want to achieve the following:

Destroy and replace the victim’s morality, decency, humanity, and identity
Make the victim a vector for spreading their sociopathic behaviors
Train the victims in various tactics of deflection, denial, and deceit
Remain undetected

Note the last point: It’s an interesting difference between many cults and the ROCAR, as you’ll often see in treating their condition.

Why are they so angry?

There are several reasons why victims of the ROCAR are so angry.

When outed, you will often see a strong negative reaction. This is because the ROCAR struggles to keep itself unknown, likely so it can infect others into becoming victims.
They wish their mythical “atheist senpai” (as seen above) would just please, for once, notice them and love them.
Their religion and its tenets is not taken seriously.
Their tactics have a 100% failure rate with those who they really want to convince. After hundreds of thousands of tweets, videos, FaceBook posts, and so on, they have only managed to make people upset here and there, but never convincing anyone of value that their religion is true.

When you identify a ROCARian

If you are not a trained ROCAR therapy specialist, stop. ROCARians, like most of the religious (or more broadly, most people), are specially trained to resist facts and evidence contrary to their religion’s teachings.

The first step is to step in and offer hugs and hope for the victim. These are essential in the therapy process, but also the most resisted. Remember, the ROCAR forces its victims to hate those who won’t accept its rage, anger, and fear.

Treatment Protocol

It’s extremely important to maintain separation between the victim and the depravity of the ROCAR itself. Remind the victim that you believe in them, that it’s not their fault, and that you’re there for them. These people need extended therapy sessions to help them let go of all the rage and hatred the ROCAR has instilled in them, so be prepared for lots of resistance.

Do:

Offer lots of hugs and hope.
Remind the patient that the ROCAR is bad, not them. It’s not their fault.
Treat this as therapy, not a shouting match. The ROCARian is trained to spread their noxious behavior.
Be 100% honest about offers of hugs.

Do not:

Insult or berate the patient. Remember, it’s not their fault.
Believe you can cure the patient. Only they can make the ultimate choice to step out of the ROCAR. All you can do is offer the encouragement they may need to do it.
Assume you can treat all of the infected. Some ROCARians are very high level provocateurs, and will tax your patience in treating them. Only you can assess what you are willing to deal with.

Usual responses

When first outed, you can expect one of these kinds of responses:

Blocking or ignoring: Happens in several of these cases. Less confident or less trained victims presumably resort to this on orders by superiors.
Projection: The staple tactic of the ROCAR.
Abuse: Another staple tactic.
Demands: Some victims will attempt to make demands such as “prove atheism is absolutely true” or “prove materialism”.
Nonsense: Throwing up word salads in an attempt to obfuscate.
Threats: A selection of victims will resort to threats, physical or otherwise, such as “god will judge you”.
Spamming the Hitler button: The more indoctrinated victims will often resort to “Hitler founded the religion of atheism”.

Regardless of the defensive tactics used, stay on point with the treatment. This is not a conversation, and at the outset the patient is too damaged in almost all cases to try evidence-based treatment modalities. Calmly remind them you know how hurt they are by the ROCAR.

Sample Treatment

It’s sometimes easier to see examples to begin your practice of treating infected victims. Let’s take a possible Twitter conversation to start with.

Larry: “I don’t see why atheists attack religion when atheism is a religion.”

(Recognize here that Larry is using classic ROCARian tactics and rituals. Let’s assume Larry just posts this and you don’t know him.)

You: “Hello, I’m here to offer the hugs & hope you need to escape the angry religion of calling atheism a religion.”

(This is a simple way to announce your intent and that you recognize Larry’s real religion. At this point, many will ignore or block.)

Larry: “I’m not in a religion! You’re in the religion of atheism!”

(Larry is already going into his programmed response tactics, these being denial, projection, and baiting. Acknowledgement of their membership in the ROCAR is heretical.)

You: “Yes, you’re in the vile religion of calling atheism a religion, I know. You can break free. Hugs!”

(Larry has already established, as of his first post, that he is a ROCARian. While insulting the patient is not acceptable, reminding them of their religion is. Note how the bait is entirely passed over and his projection is returned to him, postage due. This reminds Larry his tactics are doomed to fail yet again.)

Larry: “Prove atheism is true and there isn’t a god then! Ha, you can’t!”

(Larry has shifted from the denial to the demand tactic. What he forgets is that he’s not owed anything, and ROCARians certainly don’t get to have any say in defining or even discussing atheism. Again, this is baiting.)

You: “I’m sorry the weak tactics of the angry religion of calling atheism a religion have failed you yet again. Don’t be their victim anymore. Hugs!”

(Again, you don’t respond with digressions as to dictionary definitions; ROCARians will never listen to these. You do offer encouragement to leave their awful cult.)

Larry: “God will send you to burn in hell!”

(Yes, Larry is cycling through tactics as fast as he can, desperate to find one that works. This is your garden variety threat.)

You: “Yes, the vile religion of calling atheism a religion makes you hate & want to kill. You don’t have to anymore though. Hugs!”

(Respond to their desperation with calm, loving offers of hugs and support. ROCARians, brainwashed to hate and fear, can’t process it.)

Larry: “I’m blocking you!!”

(Realizing his tactics can’t work, Larry is forced into meltdown. While blocking is not really a desired outcome, with enough offers for therapy, he may yet come around.)

A few other things to note about this exchange:

You can expect tactics to change in a rapid fire style.
Note how no responses that name logical fallacies are used. This is because they don’t work.
Note how Larry is blocking because of the repeated offers of virtual hugs. This is how ingrained the sense of rage the ROCAR imbues its victims with is.
Pay attention to how you maintain the lead in this exchange. Remember, a conversation isn’t possible with ROCARians (at the outset), because they can never admit to being wrong. If a ROCARian can somehow accept the offered hugs (and they have never done so), they may get to have an inkling of a conversation, but not before.
You can add hashtags as appropriate.