I’m in the same boat. While I enjoy a lively religious debate online, IRL I don’t really care to project my atheism onto others, particularly my wife. It works out fine. I went to church yesterday and managed not to burst into flames.
Many years ago I was much more aggressive in my atheism. Then I realized I was doing the same thing as religious zealots, just in the opposite direction. Now I’m just as irked by a-hole atheists as I am by overly religious folks.
The main difference is religious people influence policy which still pisses me off.
@STL - I agree with you that religious people tend to try and throw the religious influence where it is not wanted nor welcome. You touched on an issue that is close to my heart.
I am a pretty devout Libertarian as well as Christian, and I try to keep my political opinions in the political arena and my religious ones in the religious arena. That is, (and this is only an example, and a very personally charged one, at that) I PERSONALLY think that abortion is evil, terrible, and wrong. I think that anybody who does it is deserving of the wrath of God and will answer to him one day. And I POLITICALLY fully support the right of people to make that choice, because I’m not the one that will have to answer for their decisions.
The same argument can be made for gay marriage, financial/military support for Israel, etc.
Most Christians (and other religions too, but they don’t have the broad-based support of the Republican party like Christians do) think that they should project their personal opinions into public policy. I disagree fully, which I suppose makes me a bad Christian. But if other people choose to take other paths, I don’t think they should be “forced into line and beaten” by the government, just because the Christian majority wants it that way.
are you absolutely sure we’re not the same person? you might be the imposter me, which is to say that you are me and I’m trying to have a conversation with me right now.
anyway, i’ve been slowly trying to make the case with my wife (a true believer) that christian philosophy is suicide held as the highest virtue, and that non-contradictory adherence to it kills the only thing we are absolutely certain that we have - life here on earth. it’s a big mountain to climb and i don’t think she’ll ever consciously agree with me. i guess i can live with her living as if she’s not a good christian (which is a step in the right direction in my opinion) with a little christian guilt mixed in. i guess things could be worse than throwing a few bucks a month to orphans in trinidad.
Speaking of identities, are you the same TF from ZH and the dude that runs this? I meant to ask you a long time ago but I’m easily distracted by shiney objects. Given your views I just assumed so…Nice work, btw, if so. I’m a regular.
not ‘suicide’ literally, but the belief that one should place all others ahead of themselves, that the body and anything ‘worldly’ are to be hated, mercy before justice, hate the sin but not sinners. if you follow this to a logical conclusion and everyone actually lived this life in a non-contradictory way, the world would be even more of cess pool than it already is in my opinion.
Remember, as I discuss Christianity, I know full well that there are various sects and subsects, and the same message can be interpreted in various ways. But I can really only discuss my personal worldview. I’ll let others discuss theirs. That being said, I think you have a somewhat warped view of Christianity.
The Bible does say to love your brethren as you love yourselves, but never does it say that you should place somebody else above yourself.
I don’t get the feeling that the body or “worldliness” is hated. On the contrary, King David and Solomon could possibly be the two richest people in the history of the world. Money isn’t to be hated, but when it becomes a person’s sole focus and they cease to follow God and instead follow the Almighty Dollar, that becomes problematic. And the Bible says that we’re supposed to enjoy sex, albeit within the confines of marriage (much to CT’s chagrin).
I’m not sure where you get the “mercy before justice” connotation. I’ve freely said, on this forum, that I would burn two teenagers at the stake for what they did to a baby in a stroller, and I don’t think that’s non-Christian. I don’t think that “mercy before justice” is conceptualized anywhere in the Bible.
I understand the saying “hate the sin, love the sinner,” but I’m not sure how that equates to moral or spiritual suicide. I don’t think that it’s morally perilous to dislike the actions of a person, but still love them and hope that they turn away from “the dark side”. I do understand how this gets taken to an extreme by many Christians (here’s looking at you, Hillsboro Bapitst Church) and how that can be misinterpreted by somebody on the outside looking in.
Also, a lot of people tend to look at God as a mix between a killjoy and an omnipotent cop who wants us all to be work solely for his pleasure and sacrifice our own. And from the outside looking in, I can understand why people would think this way. However, I think this is akin to somebody who looks at sex from the outside in (no pun intended) and thinks, “The only reason you’d ever do that is to have babies.” And I think we all know there’s more to sex than reproduction.
I could probably type all day about this, but it’s not something that can be understood, except through personal experience. That is, it has to be “caught, rather than taught.”
Or as Fred Schwed said, “There are some things that can never be understood by a virgin.” (Again, no pun intended.)
While we’re at it with this table topic, maybe we can discuss our views on abortion, death penalty, gun control, gay marriage, and the like. I find it so fulfilling and enriching to see such tales.
I think these are all different threads. If you want to start them, go ahead. I just think that if you try to throw all of these in the same pot, you’ll get confused really quick about who’s talking about what.
I must admit this–I was afrad of speaking out in defense of religion. It’s easy to be sarcastic and condescending to a religious person. Nobody here has done that yet, and I appreciate it.
And to those who are thinking of chiming in and being sarcastic and condescending, please don’t. (You know who you are.)