Are Americans faking religiosity?

[Memphis1979]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

There are books after Deuteronomy. For that matter there's books after Chronicles. I get the sense many of you atheists/nontheists never get that far, but I'm not making up the New Testament or the Wisdom books. They do exist.

But its all the word of God, or so Christians claim.

I know the bible also says "Thou shall not kill". However, there are other examples beyond Leviticus and Deuteronomy that degrade women, and are also controversial.

People just don't read the bible. You'll rarely if ever hear a preacher talk about the laws of Moses beyond the ten commandments.

What you will hear is "homosexuality is wrong!" but then they fail to show the scripture where it says that. Thats generally because it advocates the murder of homosexuals when the issue was brought up.

I'm not sure how any feminist can be a bible thumping Christian.

I'm not an atheist, BTW. I'm a diest, I believe there is a God, but I don't believe the bible represents it.

[InsaneInDaMembrane]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

Atheists are as bad as Jehovah's Witnesses these days.

Bad comparison, sir. This is a forum for open debate not your private residence. I doubt one atheist would come to your doorsteps to try to deconvert you.

I accept that you feel some hole exists or that you don't like things that are complicated. Human life, and the life of more complicated beings, often requires explanations or is complicated. If that upsets you or strikes you as "rationalizing" okay. I really have no interest in you changing to anything.

Fair enough.

However I read the Old Testament in High School and have reread much of it every so often. I've also read sacred or religious works from other societies in comparison. These things that you want to bother me just don't and never really did.

Ok

That people of your ilk want them to bother me is interesting, I suppose, but not really persuasive.

Your call, sir.

Possibly because I tend to take the Old Testament as a whole rather than as a bunch of little parts. The whole does provide a description of a society that evolved.

Not just the society, but their god also and this is where I have a problem that you don't care to look into as you have admitted. If the god evolved as the society evolved, then what kind of god, worthy of universal respect, would that be? He would be nothing more than any other mythical god mankind has dreamed up, no?

And other things I can't explain well.

There are lots of things many of us cannot explain, Thomas, however, THIS one need not be complicated at all. It only becomes complicated because of where we start. If one holds the notion this god is supposed to be the creator of all things, source of all good, almighty and perfect, transcending human behaviors, then it is expected his deeds would all be noble and without fault. This is not the case.

On the other hand, if we place this god into the perspective of human history in terms of religious evolution, then we do a far better justice to how things are explained.

Basically though the OT "trick" of picking out some OT commands or statements to shame a Christian says nothing to me. Sorry.

Ok, sir!

[sarahkate_m]

I have found that people are prone to using religion like a shield. It precedes them as if they are represented in the best light - in HALO! That's when I feel... very suspicious.

I sold my house, a long time ago, to a guy who presented himself as a borne again Christian, etc. He'd gone to Mexico as a young Missionary... His story went on & on. He was blonde, blue eyed & spoke Spanish. Yada yada yada. He had a little blonde wife & 2 blonde little girls. He always wanted them to stay in the car when he came to talk with me. I lived in the desert. I'll call him... Mr. Christian.

Turns out that when it's time to seal the house deal, Mr. Christian's wifey signs all the papers. He's on disability (not visibly disabled) & doesn't want title in his name. They probably aren't even legally married.

Also, at the last minute, Mr. Christian comes to me & says he can't pay their closing costs. I'm between a rock & a hard spot because of a divorce situation with a deadbeat husband of my own & two little kids. I ask what he wants me to do. I have to pay a notary to change the paperwork PLUS pay closing for both of us. O well. What's done is done...

About a year or so later, Mr. Christian wants to take out a loan on the house to subsidize some speculative fiasco. He discovers through his lender that the escrow company didn't transfer the title correctly. He calls me, like I'm supposed to fix it OR ELSE. I'm like... what? You'll sue me? I didn't do anything wrong. I signed all I was supposed to & paid for everything.

He wants me to send him my paperwork (?) & for me to fix it all. I say I will if he repays me what I previously paid for him. He SCREAMS like a little girl & we both hang up with him blathering about how he's going to sue me.

So I looked over my paperwork. I had indeed paid for the title to be reconveyed. If it wasn't, then the escrow company was responsible. I call them & tell them that I & my buyer will sue them if they don't fix the situation. The corrected papers were in my hands within 48 hours. Problem solved.

Did Mr. Christian ever thank me? H*ll, NO.

My take on it was, that if a person has a so called "relationship" with a "higher power", it isn't a relationship that serves the world at large on a generous scale at all. It serves the person who believes in that relationship. This seems typical of what I encounter when someone self promotes his/her religion. I find these individuals to be selfish & often cruel.

Other than that, my pet peeve is when I have a new job & people want to scope me out based on what religion I belong to or what church I go to (I have no problem lying to nosy people who deserve this kind of lie)...

At the last place I worked, we had corporate Outlook Express. The girl who was the favorite there sent forwarded prayer chains to all of us... And the usual cr*p forwards that you get with the butterflies, emoticons & VAPID admonitions/stories that are debunkable.

I sent her a anti-forward link that debunks forwards as well as shows where they usually originate from & thankfully after I did that 2x, all forwards stopped with the exception of 'occassional' prayer/miracle forwards. Since I was always deemed a trouble maker, I couldn't really complain. Her emails were "nice" in others' eyes. *glaring smiley!*

I don't like being tricked by others' religious stances nor having it shoved down my throat. And I really HATE forwards!

[Ceece]

Originally Posted by sarahkate_m

I have found that people are prone to using religion like a shield. It precedes them as if they are represented in the best light - in HALO! That's when I feel... very suspicious.

I sold my house, a long time ago, to a guy who presented himself as a borne again Christian, etc. He'd gone to Mexico as a young Missionary... His story went on & on. He was blonde, blue eyed & spoke Spanish. Yada yada yada. He had a little blonde wife & 2 blonde little girls. He always wanted them to stay in the car when he came to talk with me. I lived in the desert. I'll call him... Mr. Christian.

Turns out that when it's time to seal the house deal, Mr. Christian's wifey signs all the papers. He's on disability (not visibly disabled) & doesn't want title in his name. They probably aren't even legally married.

Also, at the last minute, Mr. Christian comes to me & says he can't pay their closing costs. I'm between a rock & a hard spot because of a divorce situation with a deadbeat husband of my own & two little kids. I ask what he wants me to do. I have to pay a notary to change the paperwork PLUS pay closing for both of us. O well. What's done is done...

About a year or so later, Mr. Christian wants to take out a loan on the house to subsidize some speculative fiasco. He discovers through his lender that the escrow company didn't transfer the title correctly. He calls me, like I'm supposed to fix it OR ELSE. I'm like... what? You'll sue me? I didn't do anything wrong. I signed all I was supposed to & paid for everything.

He wants me to send him my paperwork (?) & for me to fix it all. I say I will if he repays me what I previously paid for him. He SCREAMS like a little girl & we both hang up with him blathering about how he's going to sue me.

So I looked over my paperwork. I had indeed paid for the title to be reconveyed. If it wasn't, then the escrow company was responsible. I call them & tell them that I & my buyer will sue them if they don't fix the situation. The corrected papers were in my hands within 48 hours. Problem solved.

Did Mr. Christian ever thank me? H*ll, NO.

My take on it was, that if a person has a so called "relationship" with a "higher power", it isn't a relationship that serves the world at large on a generous scale at all. It serves the person who believes in that relationship. This seems typical of what I encounter when someone self promotes his/her religion. I find these individuals to be selfish & often cruel.

Other than that, my pet peeve is when I have a new job & people want to scope me out based on what religion I belong to or what church I go to (I have no problem lying to nosy people who deserve this kind of lie)...

At the last place I worked, we had corporate Outlook Express. The girl who was the favorite there sent forwarded prayer chains to all of us... And the usual cr*p forwards that you get with the butterflies, emoticons & VAPID admonitions/stories that are debunkable.

I sent her a anti-forward link that debunks forwards as well as shows where they usually originate from & thankfully after I did that 2x, all forwards stopped with the exception of 'occassional' prayer/miracle forwards. Since I was always deemed a trouble maker, I couldn't really complain. Her emails were "nice" in others' eyes. *glaring smiley!*

I don't like being tricked by others' religious stances nor having it shoved down my throat. And I really HATE forwards!

I often wonder about the mental capacities of my friends and family who think these kinds of emails are deeply profound or something that can turn their gloomy day around with their feel-good brilliance. To me they are just an embarrassment upon humanity.

When someone uses the fact that they are a Christian in any conversation meant to sway me, I automatically shut down. Recently my in-laws needed a contractor to do some work on their house, they had a list of potential names they had got from friends and neighbors and one from an ad in their church bulletin. I told them to put him on the bottom of the list.

I have no problems lying to people about this stuff either. If they can't figure out I'm lying they deserve whatever they get. And the truth is they prefer the lie.

[Thomas R.]

Originally Posted by sanspeur

Come on now Thomas...Read the bible without bias, and you have to come to the same conclusion that I did...It's all a crock of make believe, nothing more.

Atheists do have something Catholics used to have, but don't anymore. That's this level of certainty. Also the solid hostility to Indifferentism.

So you're not saying "you may come to the same conclusion that I did" or even "you'll likely come to the same conclusion" like a modern Catholic would say of things. No you're saying "You have to come to the same conclusion that I did" like a Catholic from say Chesterton's time. And although I've said how irritating that is I'll admit it is also very alluring. Atheists have a mixture of confidence and proselytism Catholics certainly don't have these days. Unlike say Fundamentalist Protestants they are also pro-intellectual. The only similarly "intellectual and certain" group these days might be Islamists. (Islamists are not dumb people. Hassan Turabi of Sudan went to Oxford and Sayyd Qutb was practically a child prodigy. Osama is not too bright, IMO, but he got where he is on money and "charisma")

I admit some of this is new to me. I've read atheists all my life, but the atheists I read in youth were not like this. Proselytizing atheism had mostly waned after World War II or at least I rarely encountered it. The "If you were just unbiased you'd think as I do" nonsense was something the more Humanist atheists I remembered would've deemed too confrontational or repressive. I think atheists were trying to move away from the defenses of totalitarianism or re-education that you saw in the writings of men like H. G. Wells. Religion was erroneous, but people might come to erroneous conclusions in honesty and sincerity.

Lots of reasons this might have changed I guess. The rise of Islamic Fundamentalism and the conservative take-over of the Southern Baptists seem important. Although those things were occurring in my youth, but this kind of atheist intolerance was limited to a lunatic fringe of O'Hair supporters. Possibly the increase in highly religious immigrants to Europe is more significant. That the future really wasn't, and won't, be atheistic was perhaps finally slammed into Europeans on seeing that it's Pentecostalism and Islam that are growing. And they reacted with panic. On reflection I suppose that, combined with the election of Bush for the American atheists, was maybe the thing. It's interesting I suppose.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I think what you wrote was fundamentally idiotic, and barely worthy of a response, but useful for me after a fashion.

[sarahkate_m]

Originally Posted by Thomas R.

Atheists do have something Catholics used to have, but don't anymore. That's this level of certainty. Also the solid hostility to Indifferentism.

So you're not saying "you may come to the same conclusion that I did" or even "you'll likely come to the same conclusion" like a modern Catholic would say of things. No you're saying "You have to come to the same conclusion that I did" like a Catholic from say Chesterton's time. And although I've said how irritating that is I'll admit it is also very alluring. Atheists have a mixture of confidence and proselytism Catholics certainly don't have these days. Unlike say Fundamentalist Protestants they are also pro-intellectual. The only similarly "intellectual and certain" group these days might be Islamists. (Islamists are not dumb people. Hassan Turabi of Sudan went to Oxford and Sayyd Qutb was practically a child prodigy. Osama is not too bright, IMO, but he got where he is on money and "charisma")

I admit some of this is new to me. I've read atheists all my life, but the atheists I read in youth were not like this. Proselytizing atheism had mostly waned after World War II or at least I rarely encountered it. The "If you were just unbiased you'd think as I do" nonsense was something the more Humanist atheists I remembered would've deemed too confrontational or repressive. I think atheists were trying to move away from the defenses of totalitarianism or re-education that you saw in the writings of men like H. G. Wells. Religion was erroneous, but people might come to erroneous conclusions in honesty and sincerity.

Lots of reasons this might have changed I guess. The rise of Islamic Fundamentalism and the conservative take-over of the Southern Baptists seem important. Although those things were occurring in my youth, but this kind of atheist intolerance was limited to a lunatic fringe of O'Hair supporters. Possibly the increase in highly religious immigrants to Europe is more significant. That the future really wasn't, and won't, be atheistic was perhaps finally slammed into Europeans on seeing that it's Pentecostalism and Islam that are growing. And they reacted with panic. On reflection I suppose that, combined with the election of Bush for the American atheists, was maybe the thing. It's interesting I suppose.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I think what you wrote was fundamentally idiotic, and barely worthy of a response, but useful for me after a fashion.

**Very interesting: WELL SPOKEN, Thomas**