Religion - Great!

[alfajobrob]

Uhm... did either of them bring up religion? Do you presume that all anyone with a religious belief wants to talk about is religion? Did it ever occur to the OP that it's just a tad judgemental and superior to label someone, whose lifestyle and relationship to their religionhe/she presumably has only the vaguest concept of, as 'backwards morons'?

Yes, no and I don't give a shit about their lifestyle as I regard them ALL as "backward morons" who deserve ridicule HTH

 

[Cloo]

I think you are being wilfully ignorant about what religion could mean as part of someone's life, TBH.

 

[krtek a houby]

I think you are being wilfully ignorant about what religion could mean as part of someone's life, TBH.

Oh for sure. I know plenty who have been brutalised and traumatised by religion being part of their lives. And because of such horrors; religion always will be part of their lives

 

[Cloo]

Yes, sadly for many people that is exactly what it can mean. But it can mean other things too.

 

[krtek a houby]

Yes, sadly for many people that is exactly what it can mean. But it can mean other things too.

Elighten me, please. Comfort? Succour? Surely these things can be found outside of cults about non existent beings?

 

[Cloo]

I'm not saying that what people can get from religion can't be got anywhere else. Indeed some of the most significant parts - community, a spiritual sense of something bigger than oneself etc can be found at a music festival or a rave or family, hereditary culture etc.

I'm not in the business of absolving religion, both collectively and within individual families from the manifold atrocities both cultural and private that have happened it its name. But I am saying that some people ought to consider that there just might be ways that 'religious people' (whatever those are) conduct themselves and relate to their religion that they are not aware of. And consider that before they decide what every religious person thinks and feels.

 

[existentialist]

Yes, no and I don't give a shit about their lifestyle as I regard them ALL as "backward morons" who deserve ridicule HTH

So, not remotely judgemental, then?

I must admit, when I do my opposing-religion bit, I do aim to be the opposite of what I oppose. And, given that the judgementalism is a big part of what I find unpleasant about religion, I don't really want to find myself aping it even as I oppose it.

My experience is that much of this religious judgementalism is actually about fear - fear of meaninglessness, of there not being Certainty, dammit, of ambiguity, of some kind of ill-defined moral breakdown. Furthermore, being kind and interested, and listening to what religious types have to say, at the very least demonstrates that not all atheists are stary-eyed loons who write entire communities of people off because they hold a belief we don't share.

 

[coley]

So, not remotely judgemental, then?

I must admit, when I do my opposing-religion bit, I do aim to be the opposite of what I oppose. And, given that the judgementalism is a big part of what I find unpleasant about religion, I don't really want to find myself aping it even as I oppose it.

My experience is that much of this religious judgementalism is actually about fear - fear of meaninglessness, of there not being Certainty, dammit, of ambiguity, of some kind of ill-defined moral breakdown. Furthermore, being kind and interested, and listening to what religious types have to say, at the very least demonstrates that not all atheists are stary-eyed loons who write entire communities of people off because they hold a belief we don't share.

I often wonder why you bother giving the obvious arseholes and trolls a reasoned response

 

[laptop]

unsubstantiated deism.

As opposed to... ?

 

[existentialist]

I often wonder why you bother giving the obvious arseholes and trolls a reasoned response

Practice, entertainment, and as a way of not rising to the bait

 

[CNT36]

Or if it really bothers you, don't discuss religion. It isn't compulsory. Talk about Eli Wallach, or Home Alone, or Beano annuals, or baking , or dogs, or summer holidays, or where you grew up, or extreme weather, or your favourite cafe, the big news story of the day, your worst ever hangover, whether time travel is possible, great cheeses of the world, the best book you've ever read, what became of the cast of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, where all the public phones are these days, what's that next to the mashed potatoes, who is the guy sitting next to Kate from packing, how do you balance twenty pence on a floating lemon, what is a fatoomsh?

No one ever wants to talk about Eli Wallach.

 

[danny la rouge]

No one ever wants to talk about Eli Wallach.

What a time to be alive...

 

[frogwoman]

Jason Scott case - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

i was reading about the waco siege the other day and came across this

so yeah atheists can be just as batshit as the christian fundamentalists they oppose

Scott struggled, but was held down and handcuffed by the three men, gagged with duct tape from ear to ear, and had his ankles tied with rope.[6][9][10][11][12][13] As he lay face down and with his cuffed hands beneath his body, one of the men, weighing 300 pounds, sat on top of his back.[5] Scott's legs, upper body and back had sustained multiple bruises and abrasions from being dragged to the van across stairs, floors and a patio.[5]

Scott was driven to a beach cottage, where the rope around his ankles was loosened sufficiently to enable him to make steps.[5][6][9][13] Ross and his partners walked him into the house, one of the men leading him on a nylon leash, another holding his handcuffs.[5] Ross and his partners had made the house a virtual prison; the windows were covered with thick nylon straps forming a mesh, to prevent escape.[5] The two doors to the room where he was held were guarded.[5] His captors also took his shoes and fitted the room with motion detectors.[5] According to Shupe and Darnell's (2006) account of court testimony, Scott demanded that he be allowed to leave, and asked Ross whether he would try to make him change his religious beliefs.[5] Ross was said to have replied that that was what he was paid to do.[5] When Scott threatened Ross with criminal prosecution, Ross was said to have threatened Scott that he would handcuff him to the bed frame.[5]

Scott testified that he then endured five days of derogatory comments about himself, his beliefs, his girlfriend and his pastor, and diatribes by Ross about the ways in which Christianity and conservative Protestantism were wrong.[5][6] He was intimidated, forced to watch videos on cults and told his church was just the same.[4][13] He said he was watched 24 hours a day.[4] On every visit to the bathroom, he was accompanied by at least two men.[5] Every day, Ross argued with Scott about matters of religion, without giving him a chance to say anything in return, often tapping him or hitting him on the head to underscore his points while Scott was being restrained or closely watched.[5] Scott was told that he would only regain his liberty once the deprogramming had been concluded successfully and he had given up his beliefs.[5]

 

[Sprocket.]

No one ever wants to talk about Eli Wallach.

Eli Wallach, the last of The Misfits!

 

[stavros]

As opposed to... ?

Deism with some evidence to back it up. They've had several millennia to come up with some and have so far failed, but I remain open-minded.

 

[weltweit]

I find when confronted with people whose beliefs I find staggering, the best thing to do is to ask myself, what would Jesus do?

 

[stavros]

I find when confronted with people whose beliefs I find staggering, the best thing to do is to ask myself, what would Jesus do?

Consider the lily, ah.

 

[danny la rouge]

Consider the lily, ah.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Deism with some evidence to back it up. They've had several millennia to come up with some and have so far failed, but I remain open-minded.

Sure you don't mean theism? Deism is usually taken to mean belief that there is meaning to the term 'god', but that there can be no revelation - no evidence beyond existence itself, which is taken to be all the evidence needed or possible. Einstein was probably best described as a deist.

 

[tim]

"Celebrate by myself" sounds like you'll need tissues.

And a Harry Secombe centrefold.

 

[stavros]

Sure you don't mean theism? Deism is usually taken to mean belief that there is meaning to the term 'god', but that there can be no revelation - no evidence beyond existence itself, which is taken to be all the evidence needed or possible. Einstein was probably best described as a deist.

I think I mean both. A smaller group are those who refuse to accept what solid evidence there is to counteract their preprescribed view of it all, e.g. young earthers.

ETA: Have any religions of any note been invented or popularised by women? Obviously women have been massively oppressed for the majority of human history, but there have still been some major female figures across the millennia.

 

[frogwoman]

ETA: Have any religions of any note been invented or popularised by women? Obviously women have been massively oppressed for the majority of human history, but there have still been some major female figures across the millennia.

yup. Seventh day Adventists.

 

[laptop]

yup. Seventh day Adventists.

Christian Scientists?

 

[purves grundy]

I stayed with some 7th Day folk in Australia for a few weeks. When I'd arrived they wouldn't lend me an allen key to get my skateboard set up because it was Saturday.

 

[Spymaster]

They shouldn't have lent you the allen key to get your skateboard set up because you're over 14 years old.

 

[Dandred]

Every god is the true god...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip>

ETA: Have any religions of any note been invented or popularised by women?

<snip>

An important (in terms of how modern neo-paganism turned out) Californian, eco-feminist, often separatist, Wicca variant. Dianic Tradition

Arguably also a distinct but closely related and even more influential strand of eco-feminist neo-paganism due to Starhawk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nowadays there's a tendency to assume that all Wiccans are leftish eco-feminists, but that wasn't at all the case IMO with the initial British version ...

Gerald Gardner, the guy who came up with the Wiccan origin myth (although he nicked most of it from Jane Harrison, Margaret Murray and Robert Graves) was a Telegraph-reading member of his local conservative association - Gerald Gardner (Wiccan) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ETA - There's potentially quite an interesting thread to be had on the subject of political tendencies within neo-paganism, a growing number of which lean far right.

 

[bimble]

ETA: Have any religions of any note been invented or popularised by women? .

Does theosophy count? (Helena Blavatsky & Annie Besant).
Also there's them Brahma Kumaris. But maybe they too are more of a cult than a religious movement

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Oh yeah, and Theosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Heh