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hypothetical atheist - I'm not against religion! Why does everyone think I'm against religion? When I debate someone it's merely to show that my point of view makes sense. Everybody seems to think I'm going to hell, and I want to show that I'm not against any God, and that I do not deserve it. I am merely believing what makes sense to me. I am no more guilty of intentionally going against God than someone is guilty of heresy for expecting rain when storm clouds fill the sky.
hypothetical Muslim - I serve in the United States Army!
hypothetical Christian - We can all be friends. More friends would be great! I want to be friends with as many non-religious people as possible. However, it makes things difficult when they keep explaining to me, in vivid detail, how stupid I am.
I like knowing people with different perspectives and different beliefs. I think you can learn a good deal from seeing why people think or believe differently without necessarily meaning you are dissatisfied with your own life. It gives you a sense of human nature or its nature under certain circumstances. Also some religions, or irreligious philosophies, focus on things that are compatible to my beliefs but that might not be best represented by say people in my parish. (Or any US parish or maybe most any parish anywhere)
Like meditation. Catholics have it too, but Buddhists seem to have a focus on it that can be interesting. And Sufis have the emphasis on connection to the oneness of God, as they see it, which at times I find very noble or not unlike our mystics. And many atheists emphasis on truth and rejection of blind faith is quite reminiscent of my faith's rejection of subjective morality or fideism. When I say atheists here act like Pius X it's not entirely a criticism. There's a certain seductive quality to that clear sense of what is real and what isn't, what is truth and what is erroneous. Although I don't want to imply these other people have to be reflections of things inside my own beliefs.
I seem to find though that, generally speaking, getting along with people of other beliefs works best when you're not dealing directly with the beliefs. You just communicate like you would with regular people (books, music, mutual friends, etc) and their beliefs come out naturally. To have a situation that focuses on the beliefs may make it harder to avoid argument and that might create a distance.
More so respected than liked. Its tough because you have so many people automatically associating stereotypes with certain religions.
Like Thomas R. said I think you can learn a good deal from seeing other peoples beliefs without actually agreeing with them.
For every person you have on the extreme of one side of the argument you have another who is on the extreme other side of the argument. Laws of physics apply basically...for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I like knowing people with different perspectives and different beliefs. I think you can learn a good deal from seeing why people think or believe differently without necessarily meaning you are dissatisfied with your own life. It gives you a sense of human nature or its nature under certain circumstances. Also some religions, or irreligious philosophies, focus on things that are compatible to my beliefs but that might not be best represented by say people in my parish. (Or any US parish or maybe most any parish anywhere)
Like meditation. Catholics have it too, but Buddhists seem to have a focus on it that can be interesting. And Sufis have the emphasis on connection to the oneness of God, as they see it, which at times I find very noble or not unlike our mystics. And many atheists emphasis on truth and rejection of blind faith is quite reminiscent of my faith's rejection of subjective morality or fideism. When I say atheists here act like Pius X it's not entirely a criticism. There's a certain seductive quality to that clear sense of what is real and what isn't, what is truth and what is erroneous. Although I don't want to imply these other people have to be reflections of things inside my own beliefs.
I seem to find though that, generally speaking, getting along with people of other beliefs works best when you're not dealing directly with the beliefs. You just communicate like you would with regular people (books, music, mutual friends, etc) and their beliefs come out naturally. To have a situation that focuses on the beliefs may make it harder to avoid argument and that might create a distance.
I came to argue. Seriously...at these forums if someone shares my basic opinions I cut them some slack overall but really don't care whether or not I'm liked. People who believe everybody except them are wrong really get my dander up regardless of what the subject is. It's the big reason I believe Christians are arrogant and egotistical...one verse of scripture from Jesus himself:
John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Couple that with the 162 mentions of hell in the new testament...70 of those by Jesus himself and in a capsule it's the basic reason I don't lose much sleep over them.
Catholic leaders believe you must be a Catholic to get to heaven, a member of god's church.
I have a great interest in all sorts of philosophies and religions. Whether others like me or not is not a factor. Few of us actually know someone here IRL. There are posts I learn from and while they may seem conflictive with my posts, I still read with an open mind.
Overall, it is more about being a decent fellow human. Who cares about labels?
Last edited by WonderingWanderer; 06-09-2011 at 06:18 AM..
I came to argue. Seriously...at these forums if someone shares my basic opinions I cut them some slack overall but really don't care whether or not I'm liked. People who believe everybody except them are wrong really get my dander up regardless of what the subject is. It's the big reason I believe Christians are arrogant and egotistical...one verse of scripture from Jesus himself:
John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Couple that with the 162 mentions of hell in the new testament...70 of those by Jesus himself and in a capsule it's the basic reason I don't lose much sleep over them.
Catholic leaders believe you must be a Catholic to get to heaven, a member of god's church.
I totally get this. But then when a christian says that they do not interpret Jn 14:6 to be exclusionary of people of other faiths or of the non-religious, or when they say that, no they don't believe that the words translated in the New Testament as "hell" refer to a place of eternal torment, I see a lot of atheists then go into attack mode about that, as well.
It seems that there are fundamentalist atheists as well as fundamentalist theists and, across the board, people of a more fundamentalist mindset appear to think they are right and everyone else is wrong.
I came to argue. Seriously...at these forums if someone shares my basic opinions I cut them some slack overall but really don't care whether or not I'm liked. People who believe everybody except them are wrong really get my dander up regardless of what the subject is. It's the big reason I believe Christians are arrogant and egotistical...one verse of scripture from Jesus himself:
John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Now how can you blame Christians for believing what Jesus taught? I mean really.
Or are you saying Jesus was arrogant?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleroo
It seems that there are fundamentalist atheists as well as fundamentalist theists and, across the board, people of a more fundamentalist mindset appear to think they are right and everyone else is wrong.
After all we are human and we come from the same man
>>>>> Me as a Muslim I don't hate any people from other religion and I think good person well be surrounded by people, who love him no matter what is his believes
[SIZE=3] [/SIZE]
In my experiences.... I don't look or come off as a christian and people would never think that I am. So its a commonality that people I work with, or hang out with, generalize Christians as stupid and ignorant. And they talk to me as if I would agree with them. There are things I agree with them on, but not everything. But when some people find out that I'm a "believer" usually they give that odd and unusual look like, "oh really?" And they usually are a bit more polite.
A lot of my friends, mostly agnostic and quite a few atheists, that I hang out with more so than I do with Christians have come to understand that no, not all Christians are "ignorant" or "uninformed". And quite frankly, there are some ignorant atheists and agnostics just as much as there are ignorant theists.
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