All-Purpose Religion Thread

[limpid]

1 hour ago, Ikantcpell said:

Iam not a big fan of religion myself but it's not all bad, i know a few bad criminals here in sweden, who has been assholes pretty much all their lives but has now found God and they are totally changed.

Was it Thor? It can't be the God of the Bible because he's the bad guy (to anyone that's actually read it).

[Ikantcpell]

22 minutes ago, limpid said:

Was it Thor? It can't be the God of the Bible because he's the bad guy (to anyone that's actually read it).

I just seems to work for a few people, so let them do it.

It's easy to hate what you cant understand.

[Chindie]

Unfortunately the religious mindset is incredibly easy to understand. Certainly the Abrahamic ones.

[chrisp65]

I think it might be a little bit rich in this thread of all places to stereotype all people that believe in all variations of all abrahamic religions as having 'a mindset'.

There's one dominant mindset here, and that's the casual prescribing of mental illness.

I'd say I've got a number of friends, from methodist ministers to just old school quakers and even a mormon that are anything but easily understood. They certainly have very little common ground on any number of issues from nukes to abortion through gay marriage and the rightful place of bacon as king of sandwiches.

I was actually talking to an Imam in the chip shop last night (no, I really really was!) and he was fascinating and didn't once try to cut my head off because I'd ordered sausage. 

I've also got a couple of 'atheist' friends who have very set very strict views on what all religious people must be like and must believe in. Usually through having read something clever, rather than having actually spoken to a mix of religious people.

I rarely find it's the 'religion' that makes someone helpful, nice to know or a bully, a prick, or a sex pest. I tend to find those characteristics prevalent in all sorts of people.

It's almost like lots of people can't cope unless they've put all others in little easily labelled boxes, whilst declaring themselves to be terribly modern liberals. 

But yeah, stereotypes, let's go....

 

 

 

[Chindie]

I'm not sure what common ground on 'issues' has to do with the religious mindset. Or whether that makes you an arsehole or a paragon of virtue. Priests have been nobbing children for decades, atheistic people have been involved in great advancements, religious organisations have been involved in great movements of compassion, atheists have lead great slaughters. Your religion (or not) doesn't forgo your capacity to be an enormous prick, or not. But thats not the mindset.

There are many flavours of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and each brings it's own foibles and kinks to the table, and it's adherents vary massively.

But if you would call yourself a believer, your mindset is that your interpretation of your book is right in your view to some degree or another. Your mindset is looking to the book, the organisation, it's ministers and advocates, to fill a gap. Be that 'What's it all about, really?' or 'Whats right?' or 'How should I really live my life?'.

The religion is there to fill the gaps. Be that gaps in understanding, as it was centuries ago ('Why is there a world? Big man in the sky did it') and still sadly is for some, or gaps in your personal life ('I feel aimless and alone... but Church/Mosque/whatever has a community and can give me an easy path to follow') or moral guidance ('Is it ok if I cheat on my wife/steal that thing I want/etc'), and so on. It's a quick fix filler to life's more complex questions, what's it all about really, what happens when I die, that can't be it can it? Books that claim to know it all and give you all the answers in one easy place.

Thankfully, these questions are slowly shifting away from the religious sphere, through understanding, social development, and society's advancement.

The day we can consign all of them to the history books as a dark little chapter in humanity's past can't come soon enough.

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, Chindie said:

But if you would call yourself a believer, your mindset is that your interpretation of your book is right in your view to some degree or another. 

Surely that's a statement of the obvious. A bit like saying if you call yourself a non-believer your mindset is that the book isn't right to some degree or another.

People that don't believe to some degree or another are just as capable of being every type of person, just like a believer.

If you would call yourself a non-believer, you have a stereotypical fixed mindset?

Believe it or not, some people have no gaps, they are just utterly comfortable in their own skin with their own beliefs. There are even some non-believers that have 'gaps'.

I'm not advocating anything or suggesting any one thing is a better route through life than another. I'm just suggesting that prescribing a few billion people as having a fixed mindset and you know what that is better than they do...

I just get a bit annoyed when anyone, from either side of the fence, presumes to know the inner workings of all others. It's like a bit of a god complex.

 

 

[Chindie]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Surely that's a statement of the obvious. A bit like saying if you call yourself a non-believer your mindset is that the book isn't right to some degree or another.

People that don't believe to some degree or another are just as capable of being every type of person, just like a believer.

If you would call yourself a non-believer, you have a stereotypical fixed mindset?

Believe it or not, some people have no gaps, they are just utterly comfortable in their own skin with their own beliefs. There are even some non-believers that have 'gaps'.

I'm not advocating anything or suggesting any one thing is a better route through life than another. I'm just suggesting that prescribing a few billion people as having a fixed mindset and you know what that is better than they do...

I just get a bit annoyed when anyone, from either side of the fence, presumes to know the inner workings of all others. It's like a bit of a god complex.

 

 

It's a statement of the obvious to make clear a point. You believe, therefore to some extent you are taking in the rest of the nonsense to get the bits you want. If your gap is 'Why is there a world', and you turn to the book for the answer, you're taking in the rest of the nonsense of God and his laws on how you're allowed to have your hair or what to do with women who are naughty in some way, or men who like a good dicking, because you're legitimising it by accepting it on the face value it offers.

Everybody has gaps. It's impossible to know everything, certainly to the level of understanding everything in it's intricacies, and everyone has their moments of moral unsteadiness or personal aimlessness, or whatever. Even atheists, and anti-theists, like me. I certainly have dozens of gaps. I don't feel a great deal of community in my life, I do sometimes feel things are a bit hopeless, and I don't have the answers to all my questions, some of them fundamental, some of them fairly inconsequential.

The difference is, though, I look at those gaps and I either am happy to accept them, or deal with them personally by looking to do something about them, or seek legitimate information from both sides and make my mind up scientifically and logically. Which is why I wouldn't turn to a Bible, Torah, or Qur'an. I can look at the Bible for guidance but immediately I'd have the issue that I know an awful lot of it is now proven horseshit, so why would I believe any of it over somewhere else less tainted? Even if it's right in some small facet. If the Bible told me that details of the Sun's apparent passage through the sky, and it was right, thats all well and good but someone else can tell me that and they don't want me to believe in a supernatural being that nobody can see any evidence of that has deep seated problems with the exact make up of clothes I wear, what my gay mate gets up to in the comfort of his bedroom and also to believe absolute claptrap about arks and men living in whales bellies.

Some seem happy to skip the real rubbish as if it's not there, which seems silly but thats their decision I guess, or take them as metaphors (which seems odd as if this is God's book to follow, why not just put out an instruction manual on being a good person, or with all the answers there for us to have? And why didn't he write it himself?), but ultimately the big thing, the God thing, they must accept... else the whole thing crumbles down. And thats as rubbish as the rest. If they didn't accept that, the gaps are even less filled than they would otherwise appear to be. What do the answers and solutions mean if the starting point, the foundation of that answer, is meaningless or false to you? Why turn to the preacher? Why not turn to some other community leader or source of expertise or support? Or work it out yourself?

[chrisp65]

Some special non-believers have a mindset that they know exactly what all believers universally must think and believe better than all the three billion believers do. 

 

 

[Chindie]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

Some special non-believers have a mindset that they know exactly what all believers universally must think and believe better than all the three billion believers do. 

 

 

Why do you believe?

[chrisp65]

13 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Why do you believe?

I'm not sure I've said I do and I'm not sure it's relevant or helpful to the debate. In fact, clearly for some, declaring for one side or the other would lead them to close down a debate because they would then 'know' me better than I do. Apparently, it would allow others to diagnose me as mentally ill. Self proclaimed general and medical superiority is an interesting mindset.

What I do believe, is people prescribing whole swathes of other people with a single mindset is rarely helpful or constructive. I don't like people that want to impose their views on abortion on all others. I don't like people that want to cut my head off because I am or am not a sunni. I don't like people that presume to know three billion others are mentally ill. I find all those things to be a similar closed mindset.

[kurtsimonw]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

It's almost like lots of people can't cope unless they've put all others in little easily labelled boxes, whilst declaring themselves to be terribly modern liberals. 

But yeah, stereotypes, let's go....

Agreed. A bit like someone who labels themselves a "Catholic" or a "Muslim", assuming they are exactly the same as others with the same beliefs. But like you say, these people have to give everyone, including themselves labels. They need to get out of the stone age, really. 

[mjmooney]

I'm currently reading this. It's very interesting. 

 

[Chindie]

@chrisp65Over the years the defence of Christianity using the same arguments would lead many to assume you do. I also am sure I recall you mentioning it at some point in passing. I think avoiding the question in such a way might also encourage that line of thought. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I ask largely because I think it would reveal nothing unusual about the why and back my position. 

But fair enough. I don't see anything coming that particularly changes my mind that religion is invariably a way of covering for gaps of some sort. Even those 'born into it' tend to be covering a gap of wider thought and understanding, that perhaps they'd never even considered out of the indoctrination.

For own my standing, I come from a background of a family who went to church for some weddings and most funerals, and would put CoE on a census because that's the done thing, and to primary school in the 90s where you were taught the standard religious songs at assembly and got taught some parables, and did things like have occasional church trips. I wasn't allowed to go on a synagogue trip, at my nan's behest, because I was 'a Christian'. I never felt like I believed really. I recall being sat in assembly when I must have been little more than 7 or 8 and realising all this they were wittering on about is obviously nonsense. And then my nan died in my early teens and the priest came round, a man we'd never met before, who was going to go on about her in front of everyone and I recall being told she had gone 'to a better place'. And I honestly could have throttled him.

Still have the gaps, but the religion was never there, and perhaps was openly antagonistic. So I never believed and have long been openly hostile to it.

[mjmooney]

The "mental illness" thing is probably not the best choice of words, as the term is (quite wrongly) taken as perjorative, and causes offence. Perhaps better to stick with "irrational". I, too, have friends who are believers (to varying degrees), all of whom are nice, otherwise intelligent people. I regard their beliefs as an unfortunate psychological quirk (as no doubt they regard my atheism). 

[TrentVilla]

3 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Self proclaimed general and medical superiority is an interesting mindset.

Yet it isn't all that different from the common counter position of many who are true believers. That those who aren't live in sin, are morally bankrupt, are condemned unless they repent and need saving.

There is a superiority, spiritual or intellectual that can just as often be found directed at non believers, I guess the biggest difference is nobody knocks on believers doors on a Saturday morning to tell them they think they are nuts.

[Risso]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

The "mental illness" thing is probably not the best choice of words, as the term is (quite wrongly) taken as perjorative, and causes offence. Perhaps better to stick with "irrational". I, too, have friends who are believers (to varying degrees), all of whom are nice, otherwise intelligent people. I regard their beliefs as an unfortunate psychological quirk (as no doubt they regard my atheism). 

Yes but you're right and they're wrong.

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

Yet it isn't all that different from the common counter position of many who are true believers. That those who aren't live in sin, are morally bankrupt, are condemned unless they repent and need saving.

There is a superiority, spiritual or intellectual that can just as often be found directed at non believers, I guess the biggest difference is nobody knocks on believers doors on a Saturday morning to tell them they think they are nuts.

In my life I've met very few people that have this condemn / repent / live in sin thing going on that is sometimes quoted in this thread. I don't know if it's more prevalent as a midlands thing all this fire and brimstone? Or perhaps I've just lead a sheltered life and missed out on it. I genuinely can't think of an occasion I've been asked to 'repent of my sins' in a style I picture old man Ian Paisley shaking his fist and warbling his threats. Perhaps I need to watch more dracula movies, or move to Kidderminster. 

But you're right, it isn't different to the position of some 'true believers' this whole superiority thing. I think that's the gist of what I was trying to say in the post you've quoted from, I don't like that sort of thing. From anyone. So I guess we're agreeing?

[TrentVilla]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

In my life I've met very few people that have this condemn / repent / live in sin thing going on that is sometimes quoted in this thread. I don't know if it's more prevalent as a midlands thing all this fire and brimstone? Or perhaps I've just lead a sheltered life and missed out on it. I genuinely can't think of an occasion I've been asked to 'repent of my sins' in a style I picture old man Ian Paisley shaking his fist and warbling his threats. Perhaps I need to watch more dracula movies, or move to Kidderminster. 

But you're right, it isn't different to the position of some 'true believers' this whole superiority thing. I think that's the gist of what I was trying to say in the post you've quoted from, I don't like that sort of thing. From anyone. So I guess we're agreeing?

Yes I think we are.*

(*Although I reserve the right as a pagan to reassert my intellectual superiority at any such time as we cease to be in agreement and to dismiss you and all your views as being those of a troublesome God (other God's are available) botherer that should be institutionalised. Obviously.)

[Chindie]

I don't think the religious condemnation/superiority needs to necessarily be fire and brimstone stuff.

We've had reference here only recently to a religious man judging people of a different lifestyle. Not fire and brimstone but just quietly thinking of them as in sin. I lived with someone who was a hard core Christian who interrogated a friend of ours shortly after he came out in a very false way, feigning interest but actually being condescending and looking to deride and question him wherever she could.

I don't think this is unusual. The Church more or less does it by default.

[chrisp65]

3 hours ago, Chindie said:

@chrisp65Over the years the defence of Christianity using the same arguments would lead many to assume you do. I also am sure I recall you mentioning it at some point in passing. I think avoiding the question in such a way might also encourage that line of thought. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I ask largely because I think it would reveal nothing unusual about the why and back my position. 

But fair enough. I don't see anything coming that particularly changes my mind that religion is invariably a way of covering for gaps of some sort. Even those 'born into it' tend to be covering a gap of wider thought and understanding, that perhaps they'd never even considered out of the indoctrination.

For own my standing, I come from a background of a family who went to church for some weddings and most funerals, and would put CoE on a census because that's the done thing, and to primary school in the 90s where you were taught the standard religious songs at assembly and got taught some parables, and did things like have occasional church trips. I wasn't allowed to go on a synagogue trip, at my nan's behest, because I was 'a Christian'. I never felt like I believed really. I recall being sat in assembly when I must have been little more than 7 or 8 and realising all this they were wittering on about is obviously nonsense. And then my nan died in my early teens and the priest came round, a man we'd never met before, who was going to go on about her in front of everyone and I recall being told she had gone 'to a better place'. And I honestly could have throttled him.

Still have the gaps, but the religion was never there, and perhaps was openly antagonistic. So I never believed and have long been openly hostile to it.

 

Yeah, I think it's the open hostility bit that gets me. That coupled with a presumption to know what I think and pass judgement on it, is a scary combination.