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Religion


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#1 ^Leo^

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 02:17 AM

Foreword: this is more of a rant than anything. if you want to try to answer any of the questions please do. i have a hard time figuring things out having only been on one side of the problem. just know i might ramble a bit. some of it might be completely irrelevant or otherwise unintelligible.

 

more specifically, why do people go crazy when you mention religion? it's like believing in a religion automatically makes you an awful person. speaking from experience openly being a Christian does nothing but make people look at you like there's a fish growing out of your head. I'm not an orthodox christian at all. in fact, if i don't tell people i'm a Christian they'll never know it, but the second i do mention it people get a little uncomfortable. and it's far worse on the internet(see every youtube video ever). but i'd really like to know why. sure some people are extremists like ISIS, or Westboro Baptist, but that isn't indicative of every Muslim and Christian. they're a small minority that the rest of the religious world scorns. is it just that the only people who make the news are the extremists? i guess if that's the case i can understand it. that doesn't make it okay, but at least it's a reason. and if that is the case, how should we(people who follow any religion in general)go about getting around the misconceptions caused by smaller groups of crazies? i know that people will always have an idea of a religious person in their head that will never go away, but is there a way to add an image that's less of a stereotype without it being mixed with the original image? there are so many stereotypes about religion i won't even try to list any, but i'm sure some of you know them as well. it could be that this is part of the collective subconscious at this point in which case i suppose it's a waste of time to think about it, but i can't help but think that it's stupid. it's a waste of time and energy to care what someone else believes, and yet people constantly try to say that i'm wasting my time by believing in a God that may or may not exist. personally i think it's far more likely that the universe was created rather than just happening. mathematically speaking the chances of time playing out as it did are infinitely close to zero. not to mention that fact that i'm not hurting anyone. sure other people are hurting each other over their religion, but that has nothing to do with their religion. it's just those people that should be held responsible.

 

 

and now that i'm done ranting: half of those questions are impossible to answer. you can give an opinion or a theory, but that's all it'll be since half of the questions are just speculation anyway. i just needed to get that out really. i was reading the comments on a youtube video for whatever reason and just extremely frustrated with the way people were acting.



#2 Mercurius

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 02:32 AM

It's really not anything that has to do with religion in particular. That's just how it works for any group you don't feel like wanting in your (general you, including people that come together to hate on something as a group) life. Christians happen to be a particularly large group, which also makes them more relevant. Muslims have the ERMAHGAD TERRORISTS thing on their reputation which also makes them seem more relevant.

 

Atheists also have the same problem from the religious. Even if statistically they may be a less relevant group in many places, they are also incredibly visible on the internet for some reason, which effectively makes them a large presence.

 

Humans don't need a reason. We just want an excuse.


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#3 Elwood

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 02:57 AM

I think it comes from the same issue as why are people raceist or sexist - because it's something they aren't so they don't understand it so they are afraid of it. Whether they realize it or not everyones defenition of normal is what they are, be it their physical body or their beliefs. If anyone is different in any way we find that very strange and unusual. People's natural reaction seems to be to destroy or hate what they don't understand. Example: I'm a Chistian so it boggles my mind how an athiest could be so stupid as to not realize that God exists. Is this right? No, I'm making a judgement based only on my observations when there is much more to the whole matter. All atheists have there reasons for not believing and I have to understand that. Hating them for not believing what I do isn't right not only as a Christian but just a human being in general. We have to take the time to understand other faiths or beliefs if we are to understand the people who hold them. Most people just don't take the time to do that because as the saying goes " It's easier to curse the darkess than to light a candle". What this means is it's easier to do nothing than to take action and solve the problem.

This leads to another problem which is generalisation. Like you said there are extremist groups which do not represent the whole. In our case it's those Westboro nutjobs who wave their signs saying "All gays are going to hell" and "God hates fags". When anyone who's read their Bible knows that's bullshit. God doesn't hate anyone and if someone goes to hell it's not cause they were gay, it's because they denied Christ. It boggles my mind how they think running around telling people God hates them is going to bring people to the Lord. Or another example, Arim is muslim. Should we shun him and make him an outcast because those Isis nut jobs are muslim too? Hell no. Arim is a very stand up dude as are many other muslims I have met. Yet people take behavior they see from one person and think that all people of that faith must be like that.

So I'll just rap this up real quick. The solution as I see it is to educate people about different faiths and beliefs. How we do that with out riots breaking out I have no idea.

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#4 Mercurius

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 03:01 AM

 

The solution as I see it is to educate people about different faiths and beliefs. How we do that with out riots breaking out I have no idea.

Education(or rather the attempt to imbue certain beliefs in the younger generation) didn't fix racism/sexism. And let's not even get into how much of an attention span young people can afford to spend on it...

 

(I too am a young person. Trust me, attention span toward things I don't care about is by no means my strong suit.)

 

The most effective and widespread solution I've seen so far is telling people to stop giving a fuck no matter what it is. Insult them for being insecure. Tell them that what they see in others is actually just them denying themselves. Whenever they must interact with those they feel uncomfortable with or call out anything that they have a problem with, tell them to grow the fuck up. Make it seem like they're the bad guys for being afraid. Never admit blame to your contribution to whatever's happening, but always tell others that it's their fault for letting a problem happen in their life. It's basically a bunch of ways to do the same thing: general-purpose threat of ostracization.


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#5 kirant

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 05:03 AM

A little background before I go any further: I'm agnostic atheist and you may (I don't know, I'm just writing as I go to no particular end) see influences of that in my writing.  It means I make my decision on the notion of a deity based on the evidence that I see and that I would change my mind as the evidence changes.  It also means that I, as of right now, do not believe in a supreme being.

 

i feel it's because, primarily, that people make great assumptions regarding race, religion (or lack thereof), creed, and gender based on the horrible, horrible things we hear and assume.

 

I refer to it quite often but the concept of Dunbar's number basically states we can't see more than a small handful of individuals with their full mentality (based on an extension of the research which states that we can only hold a finite number of social bonds).  We can't actually picture people outside this group as actual people and reduce them to caricatures.  I mean, let's say I ask you to picture Osama Bin Laden.  Now what if I told you he might have been diabetic?  What if I said he was a huge volleyball fan?  What if I said he loved his kids and probably, at some level, was a family man who wanted to make the world better for them and everyone else?  It's tougher to picture than the easy stereotype I bet.  But he (probably) was all those things. 

 

I can't say I'm defending him on an level and I would still argue that violence is the last course of action we should ever take.  What I am saying though is that we tend to lose these details when it comes to others that we don't recognize.

 

We have a limited brain capacity and one way we don't overload ourselves is taking people we don't care about and reducing them to a very simplistic model.  You don't know anything about people you just meet.  It's easiest for us to load up a whole whack of preconceived notions about them.  Oh, you're Christian?  Hello there Bible thumping, God fearing jerk.  You're atheist?  I saw your kind plastering those "there is no god" ads on the side of our buses.  Get out.

 

And, honestly, we could probably save ourselves all a bit of frustration by not reading YouTube comments at all.  I love the term coined by Penny Arcade: GIFT, the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.  It's a real life effect given a fun name: people become more assertive behind the veil of anonymity.  These are their inner thought that they might not actually say in person.  Add to that the broken YouTube rating system (downvotes mean nothing) and you get pointlessly controversial things coming to light.

 

I honestly just stopped caring about what is posted on YouTube for a while.  It and Reddit often let our dirty and ugly sides come out and there's always a small percent of people who believe stupid things.  Heck, about 2-3% of Americans believe in shapeshiting Lizard people and 5% believe Paul McCartney has been dead since 1966.

 

http://www.publicpol...ries_040213.pdf


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#6 ^Leo^

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 12:02 PM

@ Elwoood: you can't try to educate people without someone getting angry. A school just tried to do this. They had all of the kids live as Muslims for a day. The reaction was rather strong.

@mercurius: that's actually the approach I take in life with a few details changed. Basically I just don't care what someone else believes and does as long as they don't try to push it on me,and I won't try to push my beliefs on them. Makes like much easier. I don't think that using the fear of ostricization will work though as it's so easy to find a place to belong in the world.

@kirant: I understand the concept. I know that's what happens. That was the point of the rant honestly. I'd love to get the world to a point where people only make judgements based on their experience with an individual rather than what they hear about the group that individual belongs to. One of my best friends is an incredibly intelligent person(we're talking near genius level of intelligence here) hangs out with pothead, skaters, and bmx bike riders. Most people stayed away from him assuming he was a violent drug addict. That couldn't be more wrong...well actually he could be violent, but only if you messed with his family or close friends. And I know YouTube is the last place I should read comments, unfortunately I just read everything available. It's more a reflex than anything, and it's super hard to control.

Lastly can I ask what being an agnostic atheist means to you? Just for context I'm not questioning what you believe or trying to set myself up to try and give a spiel on why you should be Christian or anything. I'm just curious.

#7 Mercurius

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 06:06 PM

Basically I just don't care what someone else believes and does as long as they don't try to push it on me

See, that's completely different. Even I don't care if my "friend" starts complaining about being accused of rape because he happened to take advantage of someone he had the hots for that got more drunk than she should have, even though I completely despise rapists and find sex distasteful in general, unless it is hyperidealized. This is really easy for me because I stopped having any sympathy for human beings for a while now. (besides, how much of what prompted you to make that rant is because of what people specifically tried to push onto you?)

 

The actual message of the means of ostracization is not that important, it just happens to be applicable to most situations instead of having to come up with some reason to tell them why they don't actually want them there, and usable by anyone. I don't think anyone actually practices ultimate tolerance, we aren't divinity. I learned this back in middle school when there was this incredibly smug asshole who felt like showing off how he couldn't give a shit about anything besides how he can say and do whatever the hell he wants, who then started crying when I smashed and scraped the side of his face to the brick wall. (I don't live in a poor area, so people don't tend to be as used to this.)

 

I mean, what are you supposed to say against comments like that? "So what if I'm insecure"? "Maturity is overrated"? "I'll care about what I care about"? "You don't understand anything!"? There's absolutely nothing you can do to fight against that and maintain face. Ironically, the best way to deal with it is ignore it, exactly what they told you to do. The best way to piss them off is to continue with whatever prompted them to try to make you shut up, but at that point people are going to see you as petty, essentially making them the winners anyway, because it turns out they were right as far as the onlookers can tell.

 

Also, fear of ostracization is extremely effective regardless of who it's used on. The only place it sucks at working well is on the internet because of reasons Kirant mentioned. Even if someone finds a place to belong, that doesn't mean everywhere else starts not being relevant. But if they didn't want to be in the group they're being ostracized from, well, better for both sides, then. Of course, that all depends on just how much they belong in the group they found makes them secure too, what if that group starts ostracizing them for whatever reason too? In the end, anyone always has to be on the lookout for being stupid enough to reveal something others wouldn't want to know about them. Someone is only your ally when they don't know enough to be your enemy.


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#8 kirant

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 10:07 PM

One of my best friends is an incredibly intelligent person(we're talking near genius level of intelligence here) hangs out with pothead, skaters, and bmx bike riders. Most people stayed away from him assuming he was a violent drug addict. That couldn't be more wrong...well actually he could be violent, but only if you messed with his family or close friends.

Welcome to the program I lived in.  My junior high school (grades 7-9) life was in a program called "Gifted and Talented Education" where they take people who they think are learning effectively and give them free reign over what they wanted to study for 30% of the day.  I think about 30% of the class is best described as the above.

 

Lastly can I ask what being an agnostic atheist means to you? Just for context I'm not questioning what you believe or trying to set myself up to try and give a spiel on why you should be Christian or anything. I'm just curious.

I think what it represents to me is the continued adherence to logical process in mind for major life decisions.  The rest of this post pretty much describes how I approach this topic.  Suffice to say though that I look at it as an "If, then" type of statement, one which lacks in the support of the statement "There is a supreme being".

 

Some background first: the easiest way to consider this is that I'm agnostic first and would prefer to label myself that.  But I would call myself atheist on the notion that most people care purely on the atheist/theist scale.  This diagram is probably best for understanding it.

 

chart.png

 

My belief though is that we must approach life with a rational line of thought for such major life decisions.  That is to say we follow the famous scientific method of observation.  Part of the hypothesis is, obviously, that a supreme being exists.  I'll continue here on out using the Biblical supreme being, God, from hereon out but the process remains the same. 

 

Now, if we approach this from that angle, we must find quantifiable proof to support or dispute this claim.  This is where things get tough: the language of each text makes it difficult to conduct.  I talked with someone on the original Biblical text and there's very little we can test and what is tested counteracts the claims.  You might wonder why I just didn't read a Bible myself and it's because each translation is modified to defend a certain goal.  For example, the original English Bible, the King James version, had its own goal in mind. 
 

With no evidence, I find that there is no reason to believe in such a statement in this interpretation of a supreme being and reject the statement of the religion based on the current evidence at hand.  Any atheist religions for that matter (there is such a thing...strictly speaking, there are no supreme beings in some religions and you can actually qualify followers as atheist but religious given the atheism/theism scale just purely looks at the belief in a deity). 

 

That first statement in the last paragraph is a strong caveat to my claims though.  I could completely and absolutely change my mind in the face of strong, testable, and repeatable evidence to the contrary. 


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