Believers believe, that's all they do. Faith is about blind acceptance, not questioning. If one announces "I believe .....", they are no longer thinking or taking in anything further on the matter.
But where would his friends and other members of his growing up process be in this equation? Were ALL the humans he/she grew up with 'ignorant'?
And yet, atheists are far less able to mock religion than many theists who mock their faith with absurd arguments.
Ok, so do you then agree with the idea that mockery fails to change them, but is detrimental to the relations between the groups and therefore more bad than good?
I rather think that whatever urge might have ostensibly been present to have “better relations between the groups” was dragged out back and beaten to death by the believer crowd who set themselves up as nearer to god than those who did not waddle along behind in their “righteous” footsteps. “Believing” has always first and foremost been about submission to a male dominator god authoritarian power structure and perceptual reality.
Are you more interested in finding someone to blame or actually fixing the situation? Today's religious people are not the same people who burned people at the stake. Is there a thread between them, sure, but I'd say the important part is working towards the future, and holding a grudge doesn't do much in that regard.
I don't think I need to do anything even remotely related to blame, the "spiritual" journey of others is theirs alone to navigate and the observations thereof belong to the observer.
Then how come when I'm talking about what to do about it, your contribution was only to say whose fault you think it was?
A talking invisible dead guy? Invisible magic people that have wings and fly around ("angels", also "demons", etc.)?....It's all so EASY to mock. The delusional are very very easy to mock. Don't be easy to mock.
Having the absurdness of the bible shoved down my throat changed my mind to disbelief. Those truly looking for truth will accept reality. Those who are not serious about the truth will continue to hold their ears and sing lalalalalalalala.
Right, so you would say that harsh behaviour on their side made you less inclined to believe them? Is it therefore reasonable to expect them to react roughly similarly?
I'm sorry, you my friend can do nothing about anything but your own perceptual reality and your own path, unless of course you plan to exert control over others.
Depends; on a case by case basis. Which in any given instance is the party feverishly and constantly focused upon recruitment, subjugation, exclusion of some and compliance of out groups via violence, slaughter and occupation? I for one am fine with turning my back on all male dominator god religion adherents and allowing them to slaughter each other over their divine beings and creation myths so long as they simply leave the rest of us alone to live our lives in a spiritual and meaningful way with the understanding that all of us are human beings. First, and foremost. In american society where the economic system relies upon us being at each others throats, divided as a people in a predatory “capitalist” economic system, layering that over with a male dominator god religious perceptual reality is a rather toxic societal mix. As we see daily. And the system foments nothing but division of the masses by any means necessary. Don’t take my word for it, turn on your 6 multinational corporate state owned TV.
No need to expect a different reaction than the one constantly shown by these people. Harsh, as you term it, seems to be their default setting when their decrees are rejected.
I don't have any memory of what your personal beliefs are. But, for both sides it seems like things would work far better if people made an effort to find ways to dial it back and find commonality.
I would agree with WillReadmore, there is no virtue in meeting behaviour with the same behaviour back. I have authority only what I myself say and do, I consider harshness in others like a geographical obstacle, one that be worked around or overcome, but not one that can be shamed into going away.
Just to remind you, I tend toward atheist but in fact really don't care what anyone else believes in religion as it truly does not matter or affect the daily progress of the world.
Yeah, I found I was controlling others in that they became annoyed when I behaved in certain ways, so I stopped.
It seems to me it does affect the daily progress of the world, in two ways (that I can think of). First, there is the actual influence of religion. Now, I don't suggest that one person can sway the entire world, but the groups of people who could all consist of individuals. Secondly, having someone be nice to you is better than having someone not be nice to you, even if you don't manage to resolve your disagreements. Either way, being polite doesn't hurt.
Well, I'm not so sure I'd go that far. It does matter, in that Christian fundamentalists sometimes deny science, assault higher education (both financially and through disdain and removal as a source of information), resort to moral absolutes derived from their religion, etc. That DOES cause serious problems. I'm just saying that one can't pursue a direction of attacking their religion. I think the best we can do is to try to move the conversation toward better identifying the issues we care about and focusing on that and working toward reasonable compromise, which is a fundamental reason we have a legislature in the first place. For many of these issues we actually share more than might seem to be the case. And for the rest, assault on a person's religion is a failure right out of the gate.
