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Religion asks too much of people like me. To be a Xian, the first hurdle I'd have to clear is to accept as fact that there's an invisible, magical superbeing living in the sky and that's just the first thing I'd have to accept. Well, I can't do that that because it's clearly ridiculous but, if I had to believe it, y'know, to be saved, I suppose I would. I expect I could shut my brain off just enough to say "Okay, whatever".. I wonder what percentage of Xians think what they believe is truly real as opposed to those who simply accept whatever is necessary to be saved. Because, for some reason, they'd still think being saved is a thing.

Why can't you believe?

Sgt_Spanky 8 July 16
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15 comments

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Got dump by 4 different Christian girlfriends, because I couldn't be SAVED. Saves me the trouble of entering into the fantasy wars and sucking on Satan's Dong.

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None of their story makes any sense to me.

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i need to see evidence. And I mean measurable, reproducible, independently- verifiable evidence, not some 2000-year-old scriptural mumbo jumbo. I can't accept any god-based religion because there is no evidence of and god. Period.

And one would think that a God that is so engaged in human affairs would leave some sort of footprint. And yet not one bit of evidence, no miracles, no nothing. And the evidence one would expect, changed hearts, insight, honor, etc. are well below average as well as giving free reign to any number of negative features: bigotry, cruelty, perversion, etc. Believers set all that aside, lying to themselves and the rest of us, saying atheists, LBGTQ, minorities and scientists are the problem.

@racocn8 Well said!

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I cannot believe because I eschew ignorance. Too easy!

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I think the churches are filled by a large percentage of people who are Religious in Name Only, meaning they are showing up to church because it's expected in their family, their community, their social circle. It's what people do, to see and be seen as a "good" person. They check their intellect, curiosity and common sense at the door. They hear sermons about shepherds tending their flock and they feel they need to be a good little lamb and follow the herd.

It's not necessarily about believing what is being said, but fitting in with the other followers. They are looking for an outside source to make their moral decisions for them, so they don't need to think or feel guilty when they do something that some might consider sinful. I don't really think many of the church-goers actually feel they will burn in hell if they commit a sin.

There is no way my parents believed what was being spewed in our family church, but we went because it was expected of us. We just had to pretend to believe, which is what I suspect many other families do as well.

Besides, it's a great cover. If there is a parent who chooses to abuse their children, well who would believe it, the parent is a church goer! And of course, we can simply go to confession and be absolved of any wrong doing.

Why don't I want to believe? I think a religion should be able to stand up to questions, should make sense, and also offer a guide or moral compass.

I was raised within Catholicism, so we were taught weird stories in the bible, so and so killed so and so, this happened, that happened, with not a lot of consequences for bad behavior. We were commanded not to take the lord's name in vain, yet my Dad has the most colorful language I've ever heard, was he punished? No, he was very successful and well respected in his field.

I just couldn't find any reason to believe or even pretend to believe. Doesn't make sense.

Humanism fits me far better. I can say I'm "religious" when asked and clarify that my spiritual views are humanistic, striving to be good whether there is a god or not. I believe other religionists should also strive to be good, whether their religion is true or a myth. I also believe that when someone commits a grave sin, they should apologize to the person or people they hurt, not to their supernatural deity. Those are my thoughts.

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Why are you referring to atheist that worship the non-existent flying spaghetti monster sky God as to call them xtians?

Illogical atheist give sarcasm worship to the pastagod.

Christian's have the Jesus style meme God organism in their brain.

... but [they] have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16

Dawkins's own position is somewhat ambiguous. He welcomed N. K. Humphrey's suggestion that "memes should be considered as living structures, not just metaphorically"[14]

Word Level 8 July 16, 2022
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Just what is the point of a circle-jerk if one of the participants has ED? (see below)

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Christians have an ugly history of behaving badly. Let the tree be known by the fruit it bears. If I followed Jesus's example, I would curse them into oblivion. How noble...

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Not all Christian churches require that, some are perfectly fine with atheists/agnostics. But yes, the ones that do believe in an invisible superfriend that will torture you forever after you die if you don't believe in him, seriously whacked.

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I can’t believe mythology is meant to be taken literally because there is deep and broad and ancient scholarship that illuminates its symbolic meaning in terms of human psychology, and not a speck of evidence to support a literal interpretation.

I think being saved is a thing, but not a thing that happens after you die and lasts forever. I think it is a reference to a shift in identity that can occur in individuals who practice certain mental disciplines. Other cultures call it enlightenment, nirvana, etc. It’s a stage of cognitive development that humans can achieve in the here and now, but when it was first discovered, there were no scientific terms to describe it, so it was spoken about metaphorically.

skado Level 9 July 16, 2022
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Logic.

That was my one word answer too! 😉

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Although I was baptized a catholic, my parents and hence me, did not go to church. There was no Bible in the house. Never any talk of Jesus. Never. I don’t know what my parents believed. I never asked.
My very first thoughts were how could an entity “always be and always will be.”
I was raised right after WWII and the thought that a “loving god” would allow 60+million die such horrific deaths was beyond comprehension. At around age 13, when critical thinking sets in, I just said “nah”, it’s all nonsense. I have never reconsidered.

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I don’t think it’s actually “religion” that asks that of people - it’s fundamentalism. I know plenty of devout Christians who don’t believe in a magical being. And I understand most Buddhists don’t.

One of the most influential Christian theologians of the twentieth century, Paul Tillich, was considered by many to be an atheist. It wasn’t that he was insincere - he just knew that the mythology was intended to be symbolic of human psychology rather than literal history.

Loyal Rue has written an excellent book about what religion really, historically, sociologically, psychologically, biologically, and philosophically is. It’s called “Religion Is Not About God”.

skado Level 9 July 16, 2022

@Garban
No, in my view, that’s not right. There is no single “right” definition of a “Christian”. There are lots of folks who call themselves Christians, and who are welcomed into the church, but who have very different beliefs.

I don’t know how to say it delicately, but the truth is… the great majority of humans have not developed deep philosophical skills. They don’t need to. They’re busy raising children and doing the work that keeps the gears of civilization turning. They don’t have the time or inclination to study everybody from Plato to Wittgenstein in order to make their day work. They legitimately need a “canned” worldview, that they can pop in the microwave and get on down the road.

For them, a fundamentalist mythology is quickly and intuitively absorbed, and keeps them out of the worst of trouble with their fellow citizens, and gives them a sense of purpose and affordable generic psychological relief.

But most ministers, and the better informed members understand that what it’s really all about is just being mindful of our fellow travelers. Faith, hope, and love.

The church I grew up in taught that “God is love.” I’m pretty sure a lot of people take THAT literally.

It seems to me that the people who are such sticklers for the rules and formalities of religion are the ones who understand it the least. All of their judging and condemning and coercing other people is the exact opposite of what their founding member taught. He taught tolerance, forgiveness, and charity. In my view, those who practice his teachings are more correctly described as Christians than those who stiffly follow all the dogma, and believe the mythology literally.

It's not that a Xian doesn't believe God is magic, it's that many Xians refuse to call him magic because they consider "magic" to be a thing of Satan. That's why fundamentalist Xians will condemn books like Harry Potter as evil. The fact that God's power as he supposedly wields it is the very definition of what magic is, is a contradiction lost on them. They decry magic as evil even though their God is magic.

@Garban
Agnostics and atheists are just like religious people - they come in all flavors. As I’ve said many times here, In my view, atheists, agnostics, and theists, are all literalists. As far as I’m concerned, the people who understand and practice religion most authentically are not literalists. To me, religion and theism are not synonymous. Theism is believing in a literal god. Religion is practicing genuine love, tolerance, charity, etc. It’s not about belief, but practice.

@Sgt_Spanky
The thing to keep in mind is that not all Christians are fundamentalist. There are progressive Christians who don’t believe in magic.

@skado Exactly, I'm an ignostic Episcopalian.

@skado That's my point, they're self deluded. If they believe in God, they believe in magic since God is magic. They just won't call it that. They'll call it "Power of God" or some other euphemism for magic. They're just kidding themselves. If they believe in a magical being (God) then they believe in magic.

@Garban Frankly, I think most non-evangelical Christians, as well as most Catholics, are what you call Sunday Christians. And if you scratch them deep enough, they are just there for community and social standing. Probably the same with a lot of Jews, at least the more liberally religious ones.

@Garban
Dictionaries are great for most common words, like bicycle or banana, but religion is an enormous field of study and practice which not even the academics can agree how to define. And of all dictionaries, Webster is the one which (proudly) goes with the most popular current understanding of a word.

And this really does all come down to how we define the word religion. I’m not saying there is only one correct way. I’m saying, in fact, the opposite - that there are many viable understandings of that word.

Where you say one doesn’t have to be religious to practice love and tolerance, I would say that if you are practicing love and tolerance you are by virtue of that practice religious.

I’m not talking about love and tolerance of your own children, although that’s good too, but it comes naturally. What doesn’t come naturally is love and tolerance of the new neighbor who came from a different culture and does things that offend your sensibilities, etc.

That kind of tolerance comes only with intention and practice. And if you are holding yourself to those standards, in my book, you are practicing religion. And I agree that does not require belonging to any organization.

Being a good neighbor to strangers of different political leanings, and of different heritage etc. does not come naturally to the average Homo sapiens. We all have to work at that, and none of us are perfect.

That type of work, whether we belong to an organization or not, was made the cultural norm by religious institutions. We believe it is the right thing to do because many generations of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists, standardized that otherwise unnatural sentiment into our universal culture centuries before we were born. In the West, we are all cultural Christians.

“Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.”

[en.wikipedia.org]

.

@Sgt_Spanky
My point is that your definition of God isn’t the only one out there. You define God as magic because you are a literalist like the fundamentalists. Not all religious people are literalists. Many understand God to be a metaphor, which requires no self-delusion.

The God of Spinoza and Einstein was not magic. There is a long history of religious philosophy that does not hold God to be a magical being, but just a metaphor for the entirety of reality, as in pantheism.

@Garban Unitarians are like that. They are solely there just for community and to have a place for their kids to learn about world religions or find a peer group outside of school, because membership in a Unitarian church is usually not much of a community standing builder in Christian America. If anything, it would raise suspicion about a person...

@skado I didn't realize you were referencing the metaphorical god of Einstein and other critical thinkers. I stand corrected.

@Garban
The latter. Anyone who suppresses any of their natural animal impulses to accommodate smoother social functioning among non-kin and total strangers, particularly obnoxious strangers, are, in my view, engaged in a religious practice. Biologically. Historically. Also anyone who practices any mind management discipline, like meditation. It’s all about managing the unruly human animal for the sake of social cohesion. Preferably self-management.

And I realize that’s not the only way to look at it, but it’s not just something I made up to terrorize the local atheists! 🤣 I came to that view late in life as the result of a years-long independent study of the relevant science and history. I believe it is in sync with the best scholarship on the subject.

@skado I agree that many people on this site do consider themselves atheists and agnostics and they also do their best to practice human kindness.

I don't understand your insistence that those actions in themselves are a religion. Why can't you just let people call it whatever they want to?

@Lorajay
It doesn’t matter to me what people call it. I’m just sharing my view like everyone else is.

I think being able to look at it from multiple angles is good.

1

Most Christians don't even know this, their entire faith is based on NOT being something else.
"I know I am a Christian because I am not other"
"I know I am saved because I am told I am not going to Hell"
" I know there is a Christian God because other god are NOT real"
" I know I should go to church because we hate hate people who don't"
etc

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I imagine most theists accept their religious doctrines the same way they would accept a software license, they just scroll to the end without reading any of it and click the accept button.

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