No, You're Wrong., >:-( Options

Anybody else here getting tired of the people who always want to say that you're wrong?

The "above average" student who tries to use science to debate whatever they can.
The religious zealot who uses arguments such as "Well, you're going to hell. That's just the harsh reality of it."
Or maybe just the goddamn skeptics who like to deny the existence of anything above them simply because they can never get enough proof.

Makes me freaking irate.

We should all do something about these people. Any suggestions? Maybe organized genocide? Mass marginalization and eradication? War? LOL. (It's funny cause those are all basically the same thing.) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rofl.gif)

But no really. Something ought to be done about people like this. Maybe we could start a movement to pass a bill making it illegal to deny another person's beliefs, so that a person has to state that it is only their opinion. I mean really it should all be categorized as hate speech anyway. If I started saying in a public building that all Mexicans were shit, I would get arrested. Yet Christians can stand around in their Churches and belittle the beliefs of others, simply because the people who founded this country were Christian. ...They were also white. And isn't it more wrong to verbally assault someone for their beliefs than for their heritage? It's "Oh, Buddha was a fatty and you're going to hell" as compared to "I dislike you because your people have social standards that most of the rest of the world would imprison a person for."

Am I making sense to you guys? I'm saying that it's one thing to assault a person's heritage, but quite another to assault their beliefs. Yes, it is all marginalization, but one has some degree of rationale behind it (unless you're a hateful inbred).

And I was soooo not serious about starting a holocaust. I'm just making a point in the best way that I can at the moment, and would ask that the moderators not freak out over it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Vagrant, I would appreciate your normal in-depth critique.

Christians believe that people are going to hell if they do not accept the validity of Jesus and ask forgiveness. So the reason to believe is so you can be saved from hell. It doesn't matter, from a Christian perspective, if you believe in hell the same way it doesn't matter if you believe a downed, live power line can kill you. However if you believe it can be dangerous then you can avoid it.

You’ve just said it’s about what Christians believe is going to happen to me (regarding hell).
It’s their belief – which is part of their belief system.


What they believe, according to their belief system, does not necessarily have anything to do with what in fact does happen with, or will happen to, me.


The power line example is a false analogy – because, regardless of anyone's beliefs about power lines, I can go examine how power lines work, do various experiments with electricity, observe what has happened to others who have messed around with power lines and been electrocuted, etc… yet I cannot do the same with regard to their beliefs about hell.

And it is indeed a conundrum because the entire situation involves their beliefs (including the accuracy, relevancy, and importance of believing) in relation to what’s supposedly going to happen regardless of beliefs!

Religious texts apply to all people.

No, they don’t.
Belief systems taught by respective religious texts only apply to those who believe them.

Regardless of how much the assertion is made that their beliefs apply to me, their belief systems don’t apply to me unless they are accurate for me and my experience.

And I alone determine such accuracy in relation to my experience – not them.

I would ask you how you can argue that it is "deceitful and despicable" for me or someone else to try to control your life. What are these principals you are so sure of? Clearly no one can prove their faith to your standard of empiricism and yet you claim that attempting to knowingly lie to you, in an effort to control you, is despicable. Why would that be despicable?

If they insist that something based upon their belief system is going to happen to me, and want me to change how I live my life according to their belief system – when I cannot verify the accuracy of their beliefs about heaven and hell with my ongoing experiences – then as far as I’m concerned they are attempting to deceive me, and are despicably trying to control my life (to dictate how I should live my life) according to their beliefs.

This post has been edited by Praxis: Dec 1 2011, 12:14 PM

It's an unfortunate natural consequence of religious belief that in order to engage it the followers of a particular religion have to assert to themselves, at least, that it is indeed the truth. If this assertion is made and accepted then the natural consequence is that it must be true for everyone - if it isn't, then it isn't valid. So if you're a christian, for example, you must believe that all non-christians will go to hell. If you don't, then you admit that there's no point in being christian. This is true of all religions, and it's one of the main difficulties with conflicting religious beliefs.

What concerns me most about religious belief is that so often the constituents are told, essentially, that it's all a matter of "God's word" and faith. Experience is not a part of it, with very few exceptions. Those exceptions tend to be more about spiritual living than about moral compasses and religion.

Being that I live in the bible belt, I encounter the questing christian a lot in various forms - jehovah's witnesses and mormons (I know, not 'proper' christianity) for instance, show up on my doorstep with fair regularity. It's usually enough to let them know that I am aware of the good news. On the rare occasions that these proselytizers feel the need to insist that I may not know the good news, I've historically been courteous enough to engage them as it's obvious they want a religious debate of some sort. When it's civil, I enjoy a good debate.

The main question that arises is this - "What experience of God have you had?" Usually it's stories about how they turned their life around. I cite the times when I did this, without religion. Then it's stories about people who were healed in some way. I cite my stories, often a very recent one as this is not an uncommon experience for me, again, without religion. Then we get into how it's obvious God is calling me to whichever religion they are offering and that this is clearly why they were called to knock on my door - despite that they knock on every door.

So I begin to talk about my experience of divinity.

One of the benefits of seeking contact with Divinity, is that it is constantly available and open to contact. I have met two people who described an experience of being 'filled with the spirit'; only two, and they are not at all mainstream christians, more akin to quakers. Absent any religious affiliation, I have experienced 'God' - I say, Spirit, personally, or the Divine, but it's the same thing. In all the times I have had this conversation with religious individuals they simply deny my experience. It's either, "Satan can give you an experience like that", or it's "Man isn't worthy of that experience" attitude.

This takes it a step beyond just insisting one's beliefs are more true than another persons - this is willfully denying my spiritual experience on the grounds that because I do not subscribe to 'your' religion, I therefore cannot have had a true experience of Spirit.

The fact of the matter is, there is a logical fallacy embedded in all "One True Religions" that is this - if there are more than one way to God, if it is possible to commune with God outside of that particular kind of religion, then that religion is invalid at least in part. The two things are mutually exclusive. If Christ is the only path to salvation, for instance, or as the Jehovah's witnesses believe, one cannot even truly experience God unless one is following their religious path, then no person who is not committed to said religion can possibly have a direct experience of God.

I don't even care to discuss the idea of reason and religion, because my experiences are unreasoned themselves - but they are experiences, not just beliefs, not faith, but actual experiences and events that have convinced me beyond a shadow of doubt that there is a divine power, a creator force, which is conscious of our existence even if that consciousness is so far and above our own that we cannot recognize the extent of it's true nature. Further, this consciousness is without any doubt on my part, benevolent entirely. In recognizing that ultimately all of creation must return to that primal source, that the Spirit of Life is invincible and immortal, the relative importance of suffering becomes a practical matter rather than a conundrum of "If god is good why is there evil?" The answer becomes not a religious conundrum but an obvious and simple matter: mortal existence is transient, no amount of suffering can truly harm your immortal spirit.

My experience is direct, but doesn't invalidate anyone else's experience. We're given to know through these experiences whatever it is that we're given to know, and it isn't the whole picture because we're not complex enough for the whole picture. Or, we're not simple enough whichever way you care to see it.

So, when it comes to conflicting belief systems, and the confrontation of "My beliefs are right, and yours are wrong" what can you say? I've had this discussion face to face a hundred times, and not once has anyone ever 'seen the light' or realized what they were doing and why it was so ridiculous. Not one religious person has ever accepted that I have experienced the Divine on my own and am perfectly happy with my spiritual understanding and it's current growth. Ever. And those that have said "Well that really is wonderful" have come right back to, "But you still can't have salvation without Christ/Allah/Jehovah/Mithra/etc." So, the conversation is not worth having, and I have, over the past couple of years, just turned everyone politely away when it comes up. The action-of-non-action is in my opinion the only productive approach because true religious belief cannot be reasoned with, cannot be corrected, cannot be made to 'see the light', cannot be understood rationally, and cannot ever be convinced that your spiritual path is enough. You cannot ever offer enough evidence, you will never change the mind of the true believer - there is literally no constructive point to having the conversation.

peace