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"Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me."
---Audre Lorde
Regarding other religions, and atheists too, mostly they seek to proselytize and advertise and evangelize and tell why their brand is better.
No religion owns God or has exclusive access to God. God does not limit Himself in that way. We are all beloved children of the Creator.
Very few people on the religion boards have a sincere interest in learning something new. However they do like to discuss topics that interest them.
A person never has to justify, defend, explain, prove, or rationalize anything about their life to anyone. That is being secure. Respond to insult with silence. That is being secure.
It is my firm belief that people should not hold firm beliefs.
(One of my favorite quotes, and seems relevant to the bickering in this thread).
I like and totally agree with that quote!
One can always quibble about what "firm" really means. How firm, is firm ? But the point where I'd draw the line is that you should always be open to questioning your own current beliefs. If you look at history, what was "firmly" held as a belief at one point in time, is in some cases literally laughable now.
I highly doubt our "maker" wanted us to be closed minded about anything. If you take the traditional view of the god/human relationship, he's the parent, and we're the young growing kids. Your kids probably believed in all sorts of things while growing up in your house...and you understood and accepted that because, well, they were kids....still learning, and growing in understanding. It would be impossible to hold your young children, or even teens, or young adults to the same standard of understanding and truth that you the parent may have being 20, 30 or even 40 years older, and having all that experience behind you.
Yet, so many seem to think that they know, THE truth now, and that truth will never change (in religion, change in beliefs is usually looked upon as a negative thing), regardless of what we experience in the future, or what opportunities for growth may be presented to us.
Just imagine if your kids were that way, would you be happy to have their beliefs in anything (earthly or otherwise) stuck at the belief level of a 5, or 10 year old ? I can't think of anything more demoralizing and sad for a parent. I want my kids to grow mentally and intellectually. I can't think of anything that makes me more proud than to have my kids respectfully questioning my own beliefs. It shows they aren't going to be a patsy for anyone, they are going to think for themselves, and forge their own future based on their own internal feelings about things.
Do we all really think god wants a bunch of simpleton patsy's who don't ever challenge the status quo for fear of pissing him off ? Again, think of yourself as the parent of kids. You may end up being right, but don't you want your kids to figure that out for themselves rather then just cling to a belief because you told them it's true ?
Do we grow spiritually or not ? Do we use the same book to teach 1st graders as we do college level students ? Do perhaps college age students have more understanding and are perhaps better able to grasp concepts that are far to nuanced or advanced for 1st graders ? What kind of world would we live in if we all just accepted that our beliefs in 1st grade should be our beliefs for our entire life ?
Just a few of my current thoughts to ponder. Believe them or not, since I'm still seeking truth myself. It's a long road, and it's been quite interesting, and I have no intention of locking my beliefs into stone anytime soon.
Except it is not a failed methodology.
Many people are very successful usimg religion, and find religion a successful framework for living life and being in relationship with the Creator.
Many people enjoy using religion and have a good life with it (though it's an open question whether it's because of or in spite of their ideations). That makes it an effective framework for them.
But I wasn't discussing religion as a framework for rationalizing or living one's existence. I was discussing religious faith as an epistemology (a means of ascertaining what is factual).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
If I fail calculus courses or fail to sing opera as a soprano or fail to learn how to repair heavy equipment used in copper mining, I don't say those are failed methodologies. I say i failed at them. Other people are very successful at them.
Except again that wasn't what I was saying at all. If I used calculus correctly but it did not actually produce useful results, and many others had the same experience, and the only people claiming it's accurate are asserting it without evidence, THEN I would be justified in saying that the problem was the methodology, not my use of it.
I practiced my faith for some 32 years, was educated and steeped and fully initiated in it, was fully accepted by one and all as a legitimate practitioner of that faith, and yet, like countless others, I had to abandon it as a bad job. And then I embarked on a survey of other faith traditions and found that they all shared the same fundamental flaw: the failed epistemology of religious faith. By with I mean, not whether a person believes in Christ or Mohammed or Vishnu, but whether one accepts asserted truth that is not substantiated in any way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
I also don't claim they have no value and seek to remove them from the world, since I failed at them. I don't say let's remove all copper mining, calculus, and opera from the world.
I don't either. I don't claim they have no value, I SEE no value and request in vain for some value to be demonstrated or at least hypothesized in a way that can be determined to be true or false. Also, it is not my place to "remove them from the world" so I don't seek to do that. It is up to believers to change their own beliefs, and when enough of them have decent evidentiary standards for affording belief, religion will collapse of its own accord. Until then it is not in my hands to attempt to remove something that will just come back all by itself if enough people are willing to afford belief to it.
This does not, of course, preclude me arguing against it or objecting to private beliefs being imposed on people who don't share them.
...
You know the hardest thing about responding with silence (which is what I try to do when things get out of hand). Inevitably, the person trying to prolong the discussion will say, "Sure. Run away. You can't defend your beliefs so you're going to bail." Most of the time, it's just that I'm tired of arguing. When the argument is doing nothing more than going around in circles, it's time for someone to call it quits. And if I'm the one who does, that doesn't necessarily mean I can't defend my beliefs. It just means I've figured out that I'm wasting my time. But the taunting can make it difficult. As you said, I don't have to prove anything to anyone. Thanks for reminding me of that.
One can respond to a point being made without responding to the insult in which it is couched,
The problem with some Christians is that they see any criticism of Christianity, however slight, as an 'insult'. Jeffbase is a classic example.
More generically they see the slightest disagreement as a personal attack and, really, an existential threat. To disagree with Holy Writ is the core definition of blasphemy. And they do not want anything with "blasphemy cooites" all over it. Since blasphemers like us aren't impressed by charges of blasphemy, they try to punt it to being a violation of civil discourse, something that the broadest possible range of listeners might be sympathetic to. Thus: "you're mean / rude / angry / bitter" and usually they toss in "rebellious" for good measure.
And yet.
Just imagine a hypothetical situation in which I were to meet (say) JeffBase in real life and he didn't know I was an atheist. And suppose he advanced the opinion that Fords are the best cars, and I said, "that's fine, buy whatever you like, but in my experience Chevys are overall better, if only because Consumer Reports rates them better in repairability and lower cost of operation for model year x and later." Would that be mean or rude or angry or bitter? I don't think so. And yet when I advance the theological equivalent of not even suggesting Chevys are better, but merely suggesting that Fords, while best, have a few minor flaws ... well he will lower the hammer. Not with counter-facts, just with character assassination.
One can respond to a point being made without responding to the insult in which it is couched,
If a point is made couched in insult, then the speaker loses all credibility. In the realm of religion and spirituality, the messenger IS the message. How we treat others is the coin of the realm.
If something is couched in insult, there is no message just loud radio static, garbled noise.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 12-11-2016 at 01:18 PM..
If a point is made couched in insult, then the speaker loses all credibility. In the realm of religion and spirituality, the messenger IS the message. How we treat others is the coin of the realm.
If something is couched in insult, their message is static, garbled noise. It is disturbed.
But the poster may not have intended any insult at all. I posted once where someone was very insulted by it, enough to send me a direct message telling me how insulting and nasty the post was but not why. To this day I still haven't a clue of what was either nasty or insulting in my post. Same with the OP on this thread, I understood it as a general reflection of the tone of some posters but not targeting a single person.
Having been an active participant on these forums for eight years now, it recently occurred to me that it is the people who are the least secure in their own beliefs who are the most judgmental and condemning of others. Those who are the most secure in their own beliefs seem to be the most willing to look at alternative perspectives with an open mind and a sincere interest in learning something new. They are willing to defend their own position, but they do not feel the continual need to tell everybody else, "You don't really know God. But I do, so shut up and listen to me. I'm gonna tell you how it is."
Thoughts?
(Oops. I put this in the Christianity forum. I meant to put it in the general religion forum, because I think atheists and other non-Christians can be guilty of this as well as Christians.)
Speaking for atheists I wouldn't agree with your theory. I don't think it's even possible to be an atheist unless you are incredibly certain about what you believe (or lack of belief, if we're being pedantic). Half-hearted atheism isn't a thing in my view. You either believe or you don't. So I don't think there are any 'insecure atheists'.
That being said I would agree that there are a number of atheists that post here that aren't very open minded. But I think that's more to do with being hard-headed than being insecure.
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