Why I don't disparage religion. (from a non-believer)

[Rabblevox]

I'm an agnostic who was raised in an abusive, idiotic, and insulting faith. Let's get that out front.

I'm well aware of the horrors that have been committed in "the name of God" over the millennia. By every single major religion. (and most minor ones)

I believe that Darwin had it mainly right ( but remember that most modern evolutionary biologists believe that he got some stuff wrong)

I'm not one for hero worship or looking for a savior or settling for easy answers.

I went through a phase of shouting militantly "GOD IS A LIE!".

That's an easy answer.

The older I get (I'm 52), the more I realize just how fucking mysterious the universe is. Physics and Cosmology are actually more lost than they were 20 years ago. If you think "bubble universes" make more sense than the idea of some type of creation, well...load another bowl and return to Scooby-Doo.

But my main argument is evidentiary. I've been an activist for almost 40 years. I have worked for social justice with Catholics, Baptists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Pagans, and Athiests. If they were really fighting for the people, they were my allies.

And the best, the brightest, the most committed...

were people of faith. They were the ones who tended to hang in for the "long-haul".

My personal hero, Genny Nelson, was a good Catholic girl who saw a need and dived in. She was on the front-lines of Portland's Downtown/Old Town homeless community for over 30 years. She gave the finger to the mayor.She cussed like a sailor, drank like a fish, and suffered fools not at all. But her love for, and belief in a deity shined through everything she did.


I could talk about Mandela, Carter, King, Gandhi, but hopefully you already know. Each of these is on record about how their faith sustained them.

Does that mean they are right? Nope.

It does, however, mean that I need to at least consider the possibility that they are right.

Maybe some others should at least be open to the possibility as well.

[Jim__]

1. I agree.

I lean more strongly toward a belief that there is no god than I do toward agnosticism. But I agree that just about the only thing we can know for sure is that we don't know. Given that we don't know, mocking someone else's attempt to understand, rather than trying to see what it is that makes them see things differently makes no sense.

[etherealtruth]

2. I'm "damned near 50" and agree with you wholeheartedly

Even more ... I credit the Catholic Church of my youth (along with my parents) for fostering a very liberal (and tolerant) spirit within me.

Religion is a very mixed bag .... but, those of faith that espouse liberal and humanitarian ideals get nothing but my support (who am I to disparage others).

[darkstar3]

3. The fact that you fear and refuse to use the label that applies to your state of non-belief

is all I really need to know.

[Rabblevox]

4. huh? (actually the fact that you did not read my OP tells me everything I need to know) /nt

[darkstar3]

5. Oh I read it, I simply found it lacking.

[Rabblevox]

6. then attack the content, instead of stupid, non-sensical ad-hominem bullshit. /nt

[Leontius]

10. I wonder if someone will come along and post how

"predictable" it was that you, the speaker, would be attacked instead of your speech.

[Leontius]

45. No, must just work for a certain side here.

[darkstar3]

12. I did, in case you didn't notice.

You see, there's a word for non-believer, and it's called "atheist". You went out of your way to avoid using it in your little essay, as so many others have done in the past, which tells me quite simply (when combined with what you did write) that you feel the label is too antagonistic to religion.

Which tells me that you don't understand what it means. It tells me more, as well, but that's really beside the point.

[Angry Dragon]

29. Who are you to tell the Poster what they are??

Do you get to label everyone to fit your boxes??

Do you know everything in their mind and soul??

[darkstar3]

30. The OP answered the question of belief.

Someone who believes in one or more gods is, by simple definition, a theist. Someone who does not is, again by simple definition, an atheist. The OP answered the question in the parenthetical statement of their topic sentence. I stand by my point.

[Angry Dragon]

31. What is a person that does not know??

[darkstar3]

32. Knowledge and belief are not the same.

Agnosticism is not a middle ground between belief and non-belief.

[Angry Dragon]

33. So in your world it is black and white??

Man is limited by their knowledge and definitions......

both change over time

You know god does not exist or do you believe that god does not exist??
or are you limited by the definitions of a god??

And I am curious in your definition of god.........



boxes are so limiting

[darkstar3]

34. Some things in life are simply binary.

The current state of a person's belief is one of them, based on the accepted definitions that we have for atheism and theism.

Again, I stand by my point.

[Angry Dragon]

35. Don't you first have to define god

to get to atheism and theism??

that is asked you to define god in your own words



knowledge is gained by stretching definitions..........

[darkstar3]

36. No.

In order for me to completely reject your chosen version of god, I will need you to define it.

However, atheism and theism are not about specifics. Anyone who believes in something they call god(s) is a theist. Anyone who lacks a belief like that is an atheist. The individual definition of those gods don't enter into it, unless you'd like to separate theists into groups like Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and so on.

[Angry Dragon]

37. I believe that there are forces at work in the universe that are

more powerful than humans

Some might call these god or gods
would that make them wrong??

I am just trying to figure out if you have any beliefs

I believe that atheism and theism is all about specifics according to whom is doing the defining

[darkstar3]

38. I know, beyond doubt, that there is at least one force in the universe that is more powerful

than people: Gravity. Gravity is responsible for a whole lot more than just keeping us on the surface of the planet, but most important for this discussion is the concept of "tidal forces". It is the gravitation of the moon which causes these forces, and there is simply nothing we humans can do to compare with the movement of the entire ocean at once.

At one time, ancient people attributed these actions to gods that lived in and/or had control over the domain of the sea. They were wrong.

My beliefs are irrelevant here, as are yours. I refer you back to #36 regarding atheism and theism, and state flatly that I am uninterested in rehashing from zero the meaning of these words, because I don't beat dead horses.

[Angry Dragon]

39. Meanings of words change all the time

and as you wish we will leave it at that

Night

[MNBrewer]

7. The fact that some people are inspired by their religious beliefs to do good

while others are inspired by their religious belief to do evil is evidence that a religion might be true?

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[roguevalley]

25. I don't think some of the people on this thread actually read it.

I applaud the OP who related his experiences through his life about people he worked with on projects that help people, some of whom were religious. It is typical of religious threads on DU that someone will come on and swing their belt and miss the whole point. I applaud the op and if others read more into it than his lifetime of observations about how some religious people were actually the most determined to do good then fine. It takes all kinds as they say.

[Humanist_Activist]

8. Why would someone's commitment to something determine whether they are right?

That makes absolutely no sense. In addition, I would say that of the people you mentioned, they are good people who happen to be religious, yes, they used their faith to sustain them, but its not like they followed the doctrine that completely, indeed they ignored what was inconvenient and immoral in their religions.

I would say that they are good in spite of their faith instead of because of it. It serves a use when they create the faith that matches their ethics and claim God/Vishnu/Jesus also has those same ethics(even if its not accurate), but really, the entire process is mostly internal.

[ZombieHorde]

11. "Maybe some others should at least be open to the possibility as well."

The possibility of what? I am not trying to be annoying, but there seems to be a really big discrepancy between definitions for god in play here. If Muslims are right, Wiccans are wrong; if Wiccans are right, Christians are wrong; if Christians are right, Hindus are wrong; if Hindus are right, Shintos are wrong; if Shintos are right, Jews are wrong; if Jew are right, pagans are wrong; etc.

Even within the labels, Christian, pagan, Hindu, etc., we have great differences. If Phelps is right, liberal Christians are wrong, etc.

So what possibility should I consider for accuracy, and what method(s) should I use for consideration?

[MNBrewer]

14. That they are all right?

And therefore, all wrong?

[Rabblevox]

15. ZombieHorde, I like a lot of your posts, but this is just silly...

Show me where I have EVER advocated a religion. All I said...the ONLY thing I said...is that maybe atheists might be mistaken.

Your knee-jerk has just hit you in the nose.

[ZombieHorde]

16. I am not claiming you are advocating for a religion. I am claiming you want me to consider something

inconstantly defined. Even the believers don't believe in each other's gods. Why don't I see people on DU telling Muslims to consider the possibility of Hera, or Jews to consider the possibility of Poseidon? Religious people believe other faiths are false, so why target atheists? Did you advise Genny Nelson to be open to the possibility Fred Phelps' God may be real, or Thor may be real, or no gods may be real?

Seems to me both the subject and the message are inconsistent.

Most atheists define their atheism as a lack of belief in gods, any of the ones postulated, so to say atheists are mistaken is to say they don't really understand their own beliefs and/or lack thereof. Most of us are not claiming to know for a fact there is no Poseidon; we are claiming we don't believe in Poseidon. Atheism is a claim about the self, not the nature of reality.

Your knee-jerk has just hit you in the nose.

HOW DARE YOU! I WAS BORN WITHOUT A NOSE OR KNEES! WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO MOCK MY DISABILITIES! YOU'RE THE JERK; NOT MY LACK OF KNEES!

(just kidding; sorry, I couldn't resist)

[Rabblevox]

17. I apologize for mocking your birth defects (kidding), but back to point...

Genny Nelson (and you should google her, amazing person) never claimed that her version of god was the right one, and never claimed to have the answers to the big questions. I think the same could be said of all the people I named.

What she DID claim is that denying the big questions, or coming up with pat answers is intellectually dishonest, and that HER belief was that spirituality was a real force for good.

[ZombieHorde]

40. "denying the big questions"

I assume you mean "where did we come from," "why are we here," "what is the meaning of life," etc.

My answers are I don't know, no reason, and life is meaningless. Are those pat answers? I thought about them for many years.

[MNBrewer]

22. Atheists might be mistaken, true, but

1. Which of the thousands of religions should we pick instead? And using what criteria?

2. People who believe that gravity is why we don't fly off the surface of the earth might be mistaken. Maybe there are undetectable Gravity Imps that sit on our shoulders and hold us down. However, in the absence of any evidence for them, why abandon all reason and choose to pray to the Gravity Imps to hold us down before going to bed every night, and before every meal?

[roguevalley]

26. there are people who will never cut any slack for religious people because

they will always lump them together with idiots and the history of others. Given that all religious people seem to always be stained by the actions and history of their respective religions, this sort of thinking can apply to other groups. Say Germans. All germans everywhere including german americans are responsible for the holocaust because ... you know ... they are german. How about Japanese? They are all responsible for the Rape of Nanking no matter if they were born in Hokkaido or Peru because all Japanese are ... you know, Japanese.

All religious people ... blah, blah, blah. Some people are so filled with malice for religion -whether its justifiable or not- that they can't separate anyone from anything. Religious people often get confidence and strength from Jesus and his message and God and his presence in their soul to step out and do things they wouldn't do otherwise. Does that make their side right? Yes. For them. I applaud them. The history of progress is filled with people who lived their religious beliefs and suffered for it. I applaud them all. And frankly, I don't care about the sniping that ALWAYS comes when faith is discussed. You can set your watch by it.

[tama]

47. The possibility that

definitions don't really matter. Possibility that what really matters is how matter moves and acts - regardless of if matter is defined as classical or quantum mechanics or number theory or God's image or Russian Doll or dialectical materialism or left undefined or skeptically doubted or what ever.

[Silent3]

13. An idea can be effective without being correct

It is perhaps true that for some people religious faith helps them to carry out good deeds. It could also be true that for some people there are common personality traits which lead to both good deeds and a tendency to be religious.

Even in the first case, where religion might come first and the good deeds follow, the possibility that what the religion claims is true isn't greatly enhanced by the good deeds of the religion's followers. The analogy I like to use is this: Imagine parents who tell their child that he has to do his homework if he wants Santa to bring presents at Christmas. The child does his homework, Christmas comes, and presents bearing gift tags "From Santa" appear.

The effectiveness of this idea of Santa Claus at getting a good result -- the homework does get done -- has absolutely no bearing on the reality of Santa Claus.

[no_hypocrisy]

18. I recognize and laud the humanity in others. It isn't an invalidation if the basis

for their kindness and generosity of spirit is rooted in religion.

I'm an atheist and it's personal. My brother converted to Sufism (mystical Islam) and he's very contented. He doesn't tell me what to believe and I reciprocate.

[Martin Eden]

19. I mostly agree, except with your last two sentences.

The fact that people who are sustained by their faith can be intelligent, caring, and committed to helping others does not prove the metaphyisical truth of their religion anymore than the idiots who attended Rick Perry's prayer event disproves it.

I know you weren't talking in terms of proof, but you were suggesting that such good people of faith should make an agnostic (such as myself) reconsider my beliefs (or lack thereof).

At the core of my agnosticism is an admission that my perception and intellect are too limited to know for certain how the physical universe and life came into existence out of a single point of mass/energy, or out of nothing. I reject the religious institutions of man and their sordid history, but I don't absolutely reject the possibility of a spiritual connection between human beings and something greater than themselves. I also think inherent in human psychology is a need for answers to these big questions and an emotional need for the assurance they are on the path to eternal life. Such a belief can indeed be a source of sereneity and strength, but this source can be psychological rather than supernatural.

Some people argue vociferously there is no difference between agnosticism and atheism. I disagree. Many people believe that a supreme being definitely does not exist, while others accept the possibility but do not hold a belief one way or the other. To me, the former is an atheist and the latter is an agnostic.

I am an agnostic, but I try to respect the beliefs of others -- until they reveal themselves as hypocrites, fools, or charlatans (which pretty well describes the religious right in this country).

[David Sky]

20. Most of us atheists considered the possibility that theists are right because of

their noble actions while alive, or currently, their past accomplishments.

We contemplated lives like theirs, some of us actually went to Africa, or India, or some other corner of the globe and did good things, but we were not princes, Presidents, or other famous people, and we didn't really believe in a supreme being.

We all have to account for ourselves and our actions on this planet, while we are here.

But entertaining ideas filled with fantasy and mythology as being legitimate reasons for why we should do right by our fellow man and other animals and plants on this planet... nope.. that's not a reason to further consider their mythology valid, simply because SOME of them did great things while here.

[Logical]

21. So you also consider the Roman Gods might have been real also?

[LadyHawkAZ]

23. A broken clock etc...

They can demonstrate kindness, compassion and care for their fellow man, but at the bottom, they believe in a serious delusion and allow it to govern their life and behavior. The kindness and compassion have a way of vanishing when it conflicts with what they think (or are told) that the delusion wants. That's dangerous thinking.

I used to be like you. Then I lived with the Mormons for a while. Nicest people in the world, most of the time- until it conflicts with their cult delusion. I am genuinely fearful of the day the current Prophet has a revelation that they need to take up arms (and it might just happen, if the government comes for their money hoard). Those nice, kind, friendly people would become violent in a heartbeat; they are that brainwashed. Meantime, they are kind, compassionate and charitable, and people think, like you do, that their faith is a good example and maybe their delusion isn't such a bad thing.

And it's by no means confined to the Mormons. How many times has Islam been described as the religion of peace, or Christianity in its many forms as the religion of love? And then along comes an abortion clinic, or a homosexual couple, or a poor single mother, or someone drawing a cartoon; out the window goes the peace and love and the body count goes up.

So I don't and can't allow myself too much tolerance. Good people are perfectly capable of goodness without hearing the voices of imaginary friends. I can support the goodness without supporting the delusion. The two are not related.

[Deep13]

24. Possibility comes from reality, not wishful thinking.

Nothing you said is an argument for (let alone proof of) the possibility of god. That's what religious faith is, acceptance that some kind of god rules the world.

How can physics or cosmology be more lost than 20 years ago when they (be careful not to reify whole branches of science) knew less than presently. If cosmologists realize now that their earlier view was too simplistic, that means they are less lost. BELIEVING we know how things are isn't the standard. The agreement between those beliefs and objective reality is the standard.

I respectfully submit that your experience of the superlatives of social justice are religious people because there are so many more of them than there are of nonreligious people. Frankly, others have found that the odds of those on the side of social justice being religious are about even while the conservatives and fascist and plain apathetic people are almost universally religious. But so what? That has no bearing on the reality of gods.

[trotsky]

27. I'll go full Godwin.

Hitler believed that Jesus wanted us to kill Jews.

Should we be open to that possibility? Please answer yes or no, and explain why.

[NMMNG]

28. People who do good because of their faith

says nothing about the existence or non-existence of gods, or whether faith is a beneficial thing. If Genny Nelson did all of her deeds because she got lots of money as a result, would you be asking us to consider the possibility that greed was good?

[cleanhippie]

41. Well, the good thing is that you have found a way to feel superior to everyone.

Good job!

[Rabblevox]

42. Well, superior to one, at least.

[cleanhippie]

43. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

[LeftishBrit]

44. I don't disparage religion as such either

I think that religion, like any belief or ideology, can be used for good or for ill.

It is those who use religion in the cause of authoritarianism, violence or an excuse for reactionary ideologies that are a problem.

Unfortunately there are too many of them.

As I always say, my problem is not with religion but with the Religious Right, not just in Christianity but all religions.

[Rabblevox]

46. I agree 100%. /nt

[Manifestor_of_Light]

48. I will disparage religion when religious people do stupid and mean things.

And expect to get a pass on their behavior.

that is the point of Christopher Hitchens. Just because it is a bad thing to do, you do not get excused.

Examples: Circumcision, hate, bullying, bigotry, intolerance, self-righteousness, racism, shunning of people not of their religion, telling others they are going to hell, etc.