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(The Bolded) I’ve been calling it atheist evangelism — the preaching, lecturing, demeaning, belittling insulting, the guilting, the condescension, but it has a fundamentalism aspect also. They are just the flip side of the same coin of fundamental religious evangelists. There are also mature atheists here that raise valuable insights, inquiries, and challenges to those of us with awakened spiritual lives.
Many people have been spiritually abused by religion. A lot of what looks like what you are saying is someone using their authentic voice, probably for the first time ever. It can get a bit loud at first.
Even if for the sake of argument, religious faith is a virtue, the fact that it's not meeting the needs of increasing numbers of people suggests it has more fundamental problems than something fixable with a bit of tuning after figuring out the atheist demographic, lol
When one's prayers go unanswered for decades, I can see why people might look elsewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by herenow1
Sure the Western countries and China and East Asia has seen athiesm increase, however in those countries the birth rates are small. Africa and South Asia is where much of the world population growth is and they are very religious societies.
Not relevant.
To the extent it might be relevant, those societies are not religious. Religion was coerced upon them by x-tian missionaries.
In the case of Africa, x-tian missionaries taught African tribes to bend over and take it from their Western European masters.
Hence, Islam is liberation theology because it teaches exactly the opposite: Throw off your Western European masters.
African tribal societies are still tribal. Their societies are not even remotely comparable to "advanced" Western societies. They are effectively where European tribal groups were circa 800 CE.
European tribes merged through conflict or marriage ultimately creating supra-tribes like the Angles and Saxons, and eventually the supra-tribes evolved into nation-States.
African tribes would have progressed similarly had it not been for interference by Western Europeans who drew the borders of their colones right through the middle of tribal territories and that was done intentionally to marginalize large tribes who might create problems vis-a-vis colonial rule by making that tribe a minority surrounded by hostile tribes within a colony.
Same for southeast Asia which has many tribes you know nothing about who were, for example, coerced into the Catholic Church by French missionaries in Indo-China. People were punished for not going to church.
Anyway, once the US and Britain stop meddling and interfering in the political, social, and economic affairs of sub-Saharan Africa, the Chinese are doing what the US and Britain (and France) refused to do and that develop those States and once they enter the 2nd Level Economy (they're all 0 Level Agrarian or 1st Level Resource Exploitation currently) then their birth-rights will decline dramatically and they, too, will start shifting toward Atheism.
What do you think about the phrase "feel bad about yourself because you did something wrong?" It sounds highly egocentric to me? Am I the only one?
This is why I believe saying "I feel bad about myself because I did something bad" is egocentric. It involves a real-life communication style problem I am having with my husband. In my world, if you've "done something bad" it means you have caused pain or harm to someone. I include the person themselves in that if they cause harm to themselves. It's their right to harm themselves but it's still a moral injury in my book. I don't have rules about other things only that but it covers quite a bit. So when I tell my husband some behavior of his is causing me pain he worries about how that reflects on him as a person. That causes people to minimize, deflect and defend and often outright lie because the hurtful thing is about them. There is an ego to protect. It's not about you. It's about the person that was hurt by the actions. That's why situations never get resolved. You no longer enter into the equation except to assist in repairing the damage and correcting your step. Guilt is your motivator for those things. It's not an excuse to feel any way about yourself and screw up, yet again, by causing harm to yourself.
This is why I believe saying "I feel bad about myself because I did something bad" is egocentric. It involves a real-life communication style problem I am having with my husband. In my world, if you've "done something bad" it means you have caused pain or harm to someone. I include the person themselves in that if they cause harm to themselves. It's their right to harm themselves but it's still a moral injury in my book. I don't have rules about other things only that but it covers quite a bit. So when I tell my husband some behavior of his is causing me pain he worries about how that reflects on him as a person. That causes people to minimize, deflect and defend and often outright lie because the hurtful thing is about them. There is an ego to protect. It's not about you. It's about the person that was hurt by the actions. That's why situations never get resolved. You no longer enter into the equation except to assist in repairing the damage and correcting your step. Guilt is your motivator for those things. It's not an excuse to feel any way about yourself and screw up, yet again, by causing harm to yourself.
I hear you.
An awful lot of people are socialized to never call anyone out on anything, and have the same expectation that they won't be called out as well. It's like some social groups (not just families) have this unwritten rule to always "make nice" because the expression of pain or even need is like the Worst Thing in the World. I grew up in a family like that and it shook me to my core when I started getting out on my own in the world to find out that sometimes people will call you out or object to your behavior, even behavior you consider innocuous or well-intentioned. I found that stressful and assaultive even when the expression wasn't particularly angry or distraught.
Over the years I have gradually improved on this score but TBH a marital argument still has a tendency to "feel" like some kind of referendum on my worthiness as a man, which is existential in this society because men are socialized to always Do Everything Right. There's a reason men like movies that, at bottom, when you think about it, boil down to Male Competency Fantasies. I think many of us fear being exposed as an incompetent fool, and it's especially disheartening when the mask is pulled off by your wife. Yeah, I know, we act tough but mostly consist of very fragile egos.
What my endlessly patient wife has gotten good at doing when she wants to mention something I did that she doesn't like is to remind me that that she is literally only talking about this one narrow topic, not about my general character or competence -- nor is she negating / forgetting any of that. And she's learned to curb her tendency to over-generalize and/or wind herself up as she warms to the topic. This, for some weird reason, seems to work well, and forestalls me shutting down or collapsing around the conversation, so that it can be productive. In other words, she keeps it focused and as matter of fact as she can manage.
For my part I've learned that my wife doesn't want or need an apology so much as to feel heard and that I'm willing to form new habits / work on my self awareness / whatever. I've learned to repeat back to her what she's told me to make sure I understand it -- or some similar thing that, were our roles reversed, frankly wouldn't help me at all.
I may have completely missed your point but that's my experience for whatever it might be worth :-)
An awful lot of people are socialized to never call anyone out on anything, and have the same expectation that they won't be called out as well. It's like some social groups (not just families) have this unwritten rule to always "make nice" because the expression of pain or even need is like the Worst Thing in the World. I grew up in a family like that and it shook me to my core when I started getting out on my own in the world to find out that sometimes people will call you out or object to your behavior, even behavior you consider innocuous or well-intentioned. I found that stressful and assaultive even when the expression wasn't particularly angry or distraught.
Over the years I have gradually improved on this score but TBH a marital argument still has a tendency to "feel" like some kind of referendum on my worthiness as a man, which is existential in this society because men are socialized to always Do Everything Right. There's a reason men like movies that, at bottom, when you think about it, boil down to Male Competency Fantasies. I think many of us fear being exposed as an incompetent fool, and it's especially disheartening when the mask is pulled off by your wife. Yeah, I know, we act tough but mostly consist of very fragile egos.
What my endlessly patient wife has gotten good at doing when she wants to mention something I did that she doesn't like is to remind me that that she is literally only talking about this one narrow topic, not about my general character or competence -- nor is she negating / forgetting any of that. And she's learned to curb her tendency to over-generalize and/or wind herself up as she warms to the topic. This, for some weird reason, seems to work well, and forestalls me shutting down or collapsing around the conversation, so that it can be productive. In other words, she keeps it focused and as matter of fact as she can manage.
For my part I've learned that my wife doesn't want or need an apology so much as to feel heard and that I'm willing to form new habits / work on my self awareness / whatever. I've learned to repeat back to her what she's told me to make sure I understand it -- or some similar thing that, were our roles reversed, frankly wouldn't help me at all.
I may have completely missed your point but that's my experience for whatever it might be worth :-)
I like what you wrote here Mordant, but I ask about the bolded..
there are some atheists who are literalists, in the same way there are some believers who are literalists.
if a literalist is a fundamentalist, then there are atheist fundamentalists.
it is the same behavior.
"Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies." There are atheists posting here on CD whose posts demonstrate that they fall into this category.
We are 'literalists' because we are responding to the theists who are literalists.
An awful lot of people are socialized to never call anyone out on anything, and have the same expectation that they won't be called out as well. It's like some social groups (not just families) have this unwritten rule to always "make nice" because the expression of pain or even need is like the Worst Thing in the World. I grew up in a family like that and it shook me to my core when I started getting out on my own in the world to find out that sometimes people will call you out or object to your behavior, even behavior you consider innocuous or well-intentioned. I found that stressful and assaultive even when the expression wasn't particularly angry or distraught.
Over the years I have gradually improved on this score but TBH a marital argument still has a tendency to "feel" like some kind of referendum on my worthiness as a man, which is existential in this society because men are socialized to always Do Everything Right. There's a reason men like movies that, at bottom, when you think about it, boil down to Male Competency Fantasies. I think many of us fear being exposed as an incompetent fool, and it's especially disheartening when the mask is pulled off by your wife. Yeah, I know, we act tough but mostly consist of very fragile egos.
What my endlessly patient wife has gotten good at doing when she wants to mention something I did that she doesn't like is to remind me that that she is literally only talking about this one narrow topic, not about my general character or competence -- nor is she negating / forgetting any of that. And she's learned to curb her tendency to over-generalize and/or wind herself up as she warms to the topic. This, for some weird reason, seems to work well, and forestalls me shutting down or collapsing around the conversation, so that it can be productive. In other words, she keeps it focused and as matter of fact as she can manage.
For my part I've learned that my wife doesn't want or need an apology so much as to feel heard and that I'm willing to form new habits / work on my self awareness / whatever. I've learned to repeat back to her what she's told me to make sure I understand it -- or some similar thing that, were our roles reversed, frankly wouldn't help me at all.
I may have completely missed your point but that's my experience for whatever it might be worth :-)
You got the point. Self-awareness is a good way of saying it so there really is no mask to rip off. More like a person realizing they are naked like Adam in the Garden of Eden. It's a good metaphor to say, in that case, the person will hide from "God". His affect is likely a trauma response from being bullied. He's stayed stuck in that protective mode and it's costing him big time which spills over onto his family. Since starting this several 30-year problems have been traced back to specific incidents that caused a defense to go up.
If a person says or does something it exists nowhere but it causes an effect. It's the effect that is the problem. I think it's ego to attach what you say or do to your person. It's the difference between saying "I lied" vs "I am a liar". Where is the lie? Which way is more effective at being able to problem solve?
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