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I get the feeling that there's at least a few people who have had some personal experiences, perhaps when they were growing up with overly zealous religious parents, who feel a bitterness towards religion and religious people in general. Personally I don't feel any hostility towards religious people and I have friends and family members who are very religious. I guess I was fortunate because even though my Mother has always been deeply religious she never tried to force me to believe as she does. She remarried after I was grown up and moved away to my StepFather and they've been married over fourty years. He's a great guy and we never discuss religion but if I was his son and had grown up in his household I don't think he could have accepted my atheism and I believe it would have caused me some serious personal problems. I could never pretend to be religious just to please someone even if I loved them. Any comments or thoughts on the subject?
Good question. I think frustration is the word not hostility. The frustration toward the Catholic Church at times is greater than I like to see in myself, but my family history, in my eyes, justifies my feelings toward them. This feeling is not so much for what they did to me personally as what they have inflicted on my family over time, and on civilization for the last 2000 years. I see them as pure evil with greed added in as a bonus.
I was lucky as a child coming from a split family (protestant and Jewish). I suspect at least one non religious Grand Parent to boot. Religion was never forced on the children, and we were given more head way and greater freedom and exposure to the two faiths than most in the South.
The history of both families had one thing in common and it was the abuse from the Catholic Church and we were exposed it in spades. The written history ran from the mid 1500 to World War II with what seemed a Catholic desire to wipe out our genetic lines. Wars, deaths, thousands killed in time on both sides in Europe and in the colonies. I do not know of one person in my family who can not tell you the stories and family history related to abuse from the Catholic Church. Most have copies of our family history so the warning of their dangerous foe can pass to each generation.
American history records a Widow Moore in Moore’s Creek, NC who fought the first major battle of the American Revolution, killing 800 Catholic Scotts. She was said to have removed the planks from her toll bridge and greased the rails. When the British came she took pride in repaying the Catholic Church for killing 600 of her family in Paris as a gift to the Pope. It had a major effect on the British war in the South and was basically related to her dislike of the Catholic Church and its members crossing her lands. She is in my direct line, and is part of a rich and sad history.
The Family goal now is never to be caught off guard again, and I try to do my part in spreading the word of caution to the generation that follows me. It took me a while to absorb and accept the family history, but after I recognized the reality and truth of it; I wanted to see the legal system close the doors on the Catholic system, and I still do. That said I still don’t call it anger, but I do watch them, and if I thought I could aid in closing their doors I would be more than glad to pull my weight.
As for other religions, I seem to do OK with them. The line I draw is when they start to kill and burn hundreds, thousands or millions of people due to their own blindness and greed.
One of my younger sisters died in 2005. I was at the funeral home with my other sisters in small town Texas (our parents died the same year) and people were freakin' witnessing to me right and left. I would remove myself from one little preaching party only to be cornered by another almost immediately for THREE LONG EXCRUTIATING HOURS!
My younger sister had just died way too young, leaving two small children and all these people, many of them my relatives, can think of is "Oh, there's Kele the Pagan! We have to make sure we save her soul from burning in hell before the funeral is over!"
I wanted to run out of there screaming into the night.
Christianity is just about the only religion I've ever encountered whose followers will beat you to death with their beliefs for your own good.
Last edited by Kele; 06-19-2008 at 07:46 PM..
Reason: Punctuation matters...
Kele, I'm sorry about your loss, that's very sad, and it was definitely an inappropriate time to be confronted with preaching when you've just lost a loved one. I don't think that people who are really aggressive in presenting their religious beliefs realize what a negative impact that can have on people. There's even alot of believers who are turned off by that in your face style of preaching.
I don't think that people who are really aggressive in presenting their religious beliefs realize what a negative impact that can have on people.
I think that aggressive Christians don't care at all about others' feelings. They seem more suited for business the religion, because all that matters to them is the bottom line. Who saves the most souls wins. Whether the soul gets saved or not is on the witnessee, they did their job.
I have several small confrontations that have made me automatically cautious around Christians. My defenses will go up as soon as someone asks "What's your faith?" For several years I was able to hide. I started questiong orgainized religion when in junior High, the Earth Science classes showing slow changes of species,made more sense to me than 7 days of cration and Man was created on the last day. As a woman I saw the male pig in the folktale that woman was created later from Adam's rib.
I was 16 when Mom finally wised up. I had to deal with all sort of comments like it broke her heart and don't I want to be saved? When I was 20 she said my favorite "You know that you will go to Hell" I told her nope, I don't believe in Hell either! lol She tried to ratailite asking what I think will happen after death. I told her the truth, I will either be reincarnated or hang out as ghost in the buy's locker room.
As a pagan, black represents the fertility of the soil, white is the death of bleached bones. When my cousin died My grandmother forbid me wearing white pantyhose, say that I was disrepecting the dead.
I get the feeling that there's at least a few people who have had some personal experiences, perhaps when they were growing up with overly zealous religious parents, who feel a bitterness towards religion and religious people in general. Personally I don't feel any hostility towards religious people and I have friends and family members who are very religious. I guess I was fortunate because even though my Mother has always been deeply religious she never tried to force me to believe as she does. She remarried after I was grown up and moved away to my StepFather and they've been married over fourty years. He's a great guy and we never discuss religion but if I was his son and had grown up in his household I don't think he could have accepted my atheism and I believe it would have caused me some serious personal problems. I could never pretend to be religious just to please someone even if I loved them. Any comments or thoughts on the subject?
I don't really have hostility towards too many people. But one experience that made me choose my path of non-belief was my friends dad. He was a very religious man that worked for years and went to bible college to be a minister (preacher, reverend what ever the hell he was).
He always told me that I was a good guy but I just needed to get right with god. He cheated on his wife with three different women, tried to hook up with a 15 year old in Florida over the internet. Later on the internet he met up with another woman from California, they met in Nevada and shacked up in a motel for a few days.
Before this happened he reamed his 18 year old son's a** for having a couple porn mags under his bed, he had the TV controlled to filter out adult content, he wouldn't allow cussing and so on
This was nothing but hypocrisy. I understand that not all religious people are this bad, but there are plenty of religious people who follow the words of people like this. He had a pretty good little following of people that really loved him, never knowing any of this and listening every Sunday about how they shouldn't covet their neighbor's wife.
I've been a nontheist since... forever! I usually don't tell people right off the bat- unless someone asks or makes a comment about jesus/god/what church I go to - whatever, then I proudly say "I'm Agnostic".
I used to work with this guy who was a Christian. He was one of the worst human beings I've ever met. He was cruel and took pleasure in making fun of the way people looked, what they wore, etc. Once, I voiced my opinion over the Iraq war - obviously opposing it, and he went berserk, "Are you an idiot - what about 9/11, what about weapons of mass destruction..." When I told him Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and the war was illegal, the scripture starting flying. The worst thing about this guy was he would play Christian music all day (and not the good kind - the boring white Christian music) and he'd also listen to Rush Limbaugh every afternoon - I sat right next to him. For those of you who like Rush, compare that to you listening to Howard Stern every day. Not good right? I couldn't say anything because the boss was a Christian too and his best friend (and just nasty - if not worse). I eventully left - but not without burning a bridge or two.
Sure, these guys were bad people - but they just so happen to be Christians too. Yeah, I did feel some hostility towards them and their self-rightousness - but I'm the one with the open mind. I pretty much think people are good until they prove otherwise. So far, most Christians I meet aren't fairing well - and I live in the south so I'm surrounded.
I hope everyone will stay nice after this comment - if you know what I mean.
You know, it really wasn't until I started reading this board that I began having negative experiences with religous people. Sure, I've known many a hypocrite and can tell stories of this priest or that (who can't ) but I have not known this weird ...anger? rage? hatred?...that some christians have against catholics/mormons/athiests/hell, anyone who doesn't believe that they do. It really was shocking to me how some of these people who are so goody-goody "I'll pray for you""a believer in Christ" and all that really turned into these evil, mean, self righteous demigogues. Ugh!
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