midnight rain

Hmm, I don't think I get overly angry. I think your generalizing. I also think atheists tend to be more obnoxious towards Christians about pushing their beliefs on them than other religions that atheists seem to respect more. That's just my experience, though.

duga

i'm talking about people that are obviously overreacting. and i am also not talking about someone who has just been directly insulted for believing something. if that happens, by all means get upset. i actually agree with you about the atheist thing...so much so that a lot of atheists annoy me just as much.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

stopher723

I'm with you duga. I think this is existent on both sides. Some believers like to go around telling non-believers how damned they are for not believing, and some atheists like to tell believers how stupid they are for believing. Unfortunately, I think there's a lot of other noise that makes believing and not believing very abstract terms, namely the existence of religion. Plenty of people believe in God but do not associate themselves with any one religion. What I find so interesting is that some people react furiously even if their beliefs (Christian, Jewish, Atheist, etc.) are questioned intelligently and calmly.

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Chris W.
decibelblog.com

SATCHMO

You're essentially describing the very nature of religious fundamentalism, which is essentially a fear-based defensive posture aimed against anything challenges or seeks to usurp a believer's existential paradigm.

I'm echoing previous posts I've made in this thread, but the dichotomy between religion and science needs to be reconciled. The idea of spirituality and science being antithetical to one another is dangerous to both religion and science, and the dangers of fundamentalism and the pseudo-science of creationism, and religious apologetics in general, are two fold.

One, the idea that religion and spirituality are somehow exempt from evolving as a result of scientific discovery is absurd and counterproductive. The Idea that God, however you wish to interpret that word, is static and unchanging contradicts everything we know about the natural world and physics in general. To augment this the idea of God being supernatural, an oxymoron, further complicates things. The atheistic viewpoint, which is every bit as defensive and fear-based as fundamentalism, only seeks to widen the chasm by adamantly refusing to acknowledge the the intangible and the potential of what lies beyond the limits of human observation and understanding.

Two, a lot of what is considered dogma within religious texts is really so contextual that to apply a literal and fundamentalist interpretation of such scriptures defies the intended meaning and nullifies any wisdom inherent in it. The idea of "mythology", in its truest sense of the word, becomes threatening to the mind of the fundamentalist. The idea of a scripture being an allegory used to convey wisdom that is otherwise ineffable is abandoned along with any notion of intellectual honesty. Logic and reason become the enemy and antithesis of faith, except for in those cases where logic and reason can be misaligned for the sake of apologetics.

In both opposing camps, those of atheists and fundamentalists, the defensive reaction is one of doubt and resistance to what could serve to progress and expand the consciousness of each respective viewpoint.

lucifer_sam

Certainly something that plagues modern Christianity above all else. And it's very difficult for churches to reconcile this without first analyzing parts of the Bible from a mythological rather than a historical perspective. Which, like you said, is viewed as a threat to the Bible's status as a historically accurate document. Fundamentalists continue to challenge even conservative interpretations of the Bible by insisting upon the validity of all passages, including Christ's parables (which I think were never meant to be taken literally).

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first.am

stopher723

Satchmo I agree with everything you just said, specifically "but the dichotomy between religion and science needs to be reconciled".

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Chris W.
decibelblog.com

duga

i agree totally. in fact, this is my main point of contention with scientists that i work with. rigid minded thinkers in both camps really frustrate me and i think the best way to make any real progress is for scientists to become more open minded. they need to find a way to combine all ways of thinking. i've made points earlier about how closed minded scientists can only chip away at problems, making no real progress at all. the best scientists think big and think anything is possible and form their hypotheses based on that concept. THAT is how any real progress has ever been made. before alexander fleming discovered penicillin, many thought his ideas were pure nonsense. many of the ideas being proven by quantum theory were once thought ridiculous...fantasy, even.

the same goes for theologists. they need to realize ANY religious text was meant as a guideline...a way to sum up complex ideas so that anyone could understand the ways of the universe. the only way these complex ideas could have been communicated in a way the the lay person could understand is by using metaphor and abstraction. the downfall of religion was when people took these ideas literally. i am not christian, but still find insight in the bible because i feel i approach it the way it is meant to be approached. remember...religion is nothing more than a philosophy.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

Freebase Dali

I dunno about you guys, but I personally get angry when literal religious ideas cloud the rational mind. It really pisses me off.
For instance: My mother has been a smoker, drinker, horrible eater, all her life. She has diabetes, she's an alcoholic, gets hooked on scripts, doesn't exercise, is overweight, has loads of stress from a fucked up childhood and hasn't figured out how to deal with it after over 55 years, the list goes on. The other day she tested her blood sugar and was at 450. That's like, hospitalization. Then she eats a bowl of ice cream so she can fall asleep. (that's like, coma)
Oh yea, she's also a deep deep deeply religious person and believes god will take care of her. Between drags of cigarettes, manic coughing and nearly comatose spells, I ask her why she does this to herself and she blames me for not trusting god and not believing that he's stronger than disease. Seriously?
But I can't reason with her. She literally has taken responsibility of her own existence and placed it in the hands of something else that's clearly not going to help. It's a total cop-out.

I know that's an extreme example, but I want to make the point that regardless of the severity of one's belief in a sentient, caring god, that person is still giving away at least some portion of self control. When you start living only a portion of your own life in your own way, then you'd better damn sure trust where the portion you're leaving in someone else's hands are. And it angers me that while there are good people out there who do the right thing in the name of a religious idea, there are those who are too weak to stand up for themselves and they completely let religion devour them and it ends up destroying them.
I know it's up to the person... but again, the whole idea of relinquishing any control to an idea that mostly just placates fear, it just pisses me off. And the fact that there are weak people who don't know any better, getting devoured by religion and letting it destroy their lives... well, that pisses me off even more.

If there is a sentient god-being who caused this whole fucked up reality, I sure hope he has a place in heaven for the folks he's led to be destroyed.
(And logically, that would include everyone if you really want to look at it.)

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duga

definitely. i'm not sure if this is any comfort, or if you would even believe this...but in looking up near death experiences, it has become clear to me that the common thread in all those experiences is belief. whatever that person believes, be they christians, buddhists, atheists, or any other faith...they experience the fulfillment of that belief at the time of death. i will make no assumptions about the spiritual connotations of this idea, but at the very least it becomes clear the brain provides that person with peace and guidance at their time of passing. this implies a lot of other things about death. more specifically, cause of death. for example, someone who dies quite suddenly will not get that euphoric dose of dmt. what this means...who can know, but it sure gives us a lot to think about.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

Freebase Dali

Sounds like it means the afterlife exists up until the point you actually die.

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