Religion - the good, the bad and the ugly

faetal on 21/2/2015 at 13:12

The thing is, the vast majority of what I see with religion isn't lots of scholarly philosophy of life, it's more "these are my beliefs, because they are and I'm not really willing to discuss that". Which is fine - if people don't want to discuss, that's their business. I do get a problem though when there is a large enough amount of people saying "these are my beliefs, because they are and therefore other people can't have abortions / learn about evolution in school / listen to music I find objectionable" etc. Religion as a personal, internal experience is completely benign. Religion as a static idea of the rules of the universe which everyone must follow or we're all damned, not so much. Even if the latter didn't exist, I'd still find the former interesting, but the latter does exist and in numbers which anyone not in on the joke rightly finds troubling.

faetal on 21/2/2015 at 13:27

Quote Posted by Chade

I don't understand how this relates to my post?

Sorry, that was my response to Nickie's "why debate?" post. I should use the multi-quote function more.

nickie on 21/2/2015 at 13:39

I wasn't asking why, I was asking how. How do the conversations/debates come about. And I know that's probably a weird question, it's just that apart from debating a specific question at university where I'd have to produce evidence to back my position, I've never known a conversation arise naturally where people's beliefs or lack of are challenged in what seems to be an aggressive way. I don't mean nasty aggressive. I've known it happen for politics but never for religion. Perhaps it's just that I'm of a particular age and religion is deemed to be personal and not challenged.

faetal on 21/2/2015 at 14:02

The nature of the universe is a fairly important topic. From what I've seen, religious people tend to believe that their version of the universe is the right and therefore applies to everybody, otherwise, I'm not sure how you'd maintain the belief. People talk about religion because it exists. This topic arose out of the Charlie Hebdo thread after Tony and I ended up having a back and forth which went too far away from the OT. There's your how. It's not like the topic just gets decided on and then commenced per any plan, it just happens because religion and the universe are fairly ubiquitous streams of people's lives and like politics, it's fairly polarising. Lengthy, heated conversations rarely arise out of topics which aren't polarising, because normally, the exchange of ideas trends toward agreement, compromise or indifference. Where the viewpoints are diametrically opposite, the viewpoints tend to diverge rather than converge, which makes those debates stand out more.

nickie on 21/2/2015 at 15:01

I get that and I understand where this topic came from. I'm really not trying to be deep and meaningful. I'm talking practical and I'm also not talking about you personally. I read statements about people challenging beliefs, faiths etc. or having their lack challenged and I just don't know where these conversations happen. In the pub? At dinner? I really don't know and have never been aware of anyone who would tell me that I'm wrong not to believe in God, not even my deeply fundamental religious sister or my not so fundamental religious mother. I've lived in cities, towns, villages, other countries, all sorts of different environments and social circles and heated religious conversations don't happen to me. I know I don't live in an intellectual environment now, but I have done. I've barely had a heated political discussion either.

So I wonder whether maybe everyone I've ever known is just wishy-washy or perhaps my age group and peers don't do heated. Discussions happen but there's always tolerance for another position.

I had a visit from a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses yesterday. I told them about the discussion here and they told me it was wrong for aircraft designers not to give due credit to birds for the flying idea. They read a bible passage to me and explained why it meant the end of the world was nigh and we talked about the internet and it probably not being as good the other side of the hill where I'm moving next week. No badgering went on at all.

faetal on 21/2/2015 at 15:06

I'm always polite to Jehova's witnesses and Church of Latter Day Saints people - they're polite to me and not pushy and they seem sincere. I don't hold with being mean to people for differing beliefs. I do tell them that they are wasting their time on me though and if they dig deeper, I tell them why I don't believe. The worst response I've had from them is that they feel a little nonplussed by my refusal to spend too long listening to their entire schtick. I guess when you genuinely feel that you're peddling truth, it must be frustrating when others refuse to see it.

I don't think challenging each other's beliefs is intolerant. I do think that holding back my actual questions during a discussion might be condescending though. I know this isn't about me, but I can't really speak for anyone else.

nickie on 21/2/2015 at 15:36

I can only speak for me too. Perhaps I should say aggressively challenge - from either side. There are arguments and discussions that are lively and 'warm' and viewpoints are challenged and then there are arguments and discussions that are heated and angry and people's viewpoints are held in contempt and insults are exchanged. The latter is the kind I don't know but obviously take place and it's those I don't understand.

Azaran on 21/2/2015 at 15:48

Quote Posted by faetal

If they ever get on your nerves, have Mark 16:16-18 written down (or ask them to look them up in their Bible), get a bottle of drain cleaner or detergent, and you can (http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=165&Itemid=137) get rid of them for good

faetal on 21/2/2015 at 17:13

I would categorise that as being mean. I've only ever had to have those conversations 4, maybe 5 times in my life anyway, so it's no biggie. I live in a 5th floor apartment now anyway, so no callers at all.

Tony_Tarantula on 21/2/2015 at 17:58

Quote Posted by faetal

Some things are cyclical, sure, but due to our increasing ability to record history, not just in the form of books, but now in the form of gigantic swatches of metadata, I think we're less likely to slide backwards without come kind of punctuation event along the lines of global nuclear war or a huge resource deficit.

I'm not nearly as optimistic. What did they do to the guy who managed to patch all that metadata into a system and do what you suggested?

They threw him in jail without charges for seven years and destroyed his work.

If you haven't yet I highly recommend seeing The Forecaster:

(http://forecaster-movie.com/en/the-forecaster/)