Atheism

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

If you are making them cry at a family meal ci. I imagine they will be pleased you won't be sharing the afterlife with them.

That's an awful thing to imagine, and clearly wrong given the context. You let yourself down there I think.

1 Reply

@Eorl,

Think what you like Eorl. It's a free country.

If ci. tells his siblings what he tells Christians on A2K I am surprised they are prepared to share this life with him.

0 Replies

@reasoning logic,

I can't speak for his siblings since I don't know their exact beliefs or feelings. I am only suggesting a bit more tolerance. They are still his siblings. The fact that they are Christians should not change that. Would be be the same toward them if they were gay, impoverished or belonged to a cult? Kinder and gentler is all I am saying.

2 Replies

@Intrepid,

Intrepid wrote:

I can't speak for his siblings since I don't know their exact beliefs or feelings. I am only suggesting a bit more tolerance. They are still his siblings. The fact that they are Christians should not change that.

As usual in discussions of atheism, you are bashing a strawman. CI never said he doesn't regard them as his siblings. He said he's not converting, and that this upsets them.

CI wrote:

During our last sibling brunch, I told my sister to not waste her time trying to convert me, and it made her cry.

This request of his seems perfectly reasonable to me. Neither you nor his siblings would object if CI had told his sister, "thanks for offering me your used car, but I'm not buying." And if she repeated her attempts, it would have been perfectly reasonable of him to say: "As I said, I'm not buying. You're wasting my time as well as yours. No means no."

CI wrote:

Would be be the same toward them if they were gay, impoverished or belonged to a cult?

I certainly would! At least if my siblings were gay and asked me to have a psychotherapist cure my heterosexuality , or if they were poor and after my money, or if they were in a cult and kept asking me to join it. And that's the proper analogy to what CI's siblings have been doing.

2 Replies

@Intrepid,

Intrepid wrote:

I can't speak for his siblings since I don't know their exact beliefs or feelings. I am only suggesting a bit more tolerance.

perhaps they could be more tolerant of his requests. It's certainly not the first time they've been told of his preferences.

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Thomas, Thanks for putting it into a perspective I believe they will understand. My siblings have been after my soul for many decades; it's not as if they just all of a sudden wanted to convert me. I've discouraged them over and over to no avail, but I also understand where they are coming from.

3 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

Turning away a door-to-door proselytizer is one thing. Having a family member try to convert you is so much more difficult to handle .I know

0 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

Do your siblings share many of your political, economic and social views or are they on the other side of the isle?

0 Replies

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

As usual in discussions of atheism, you are bashing a strawman.

As usual? The only thing usual is your bashing any post I make without giving it any consideration other that what you perceive. Strawman? I beg to differ. I will leave you to your unbelief and petty arguments.

1 Reply

@Intrepid,

Perhaps you are being too sensitive, Intrepid. "As usual in discussions of atheism" doesn't mean "as usual in YOUR discussions".

1 Reply

@Intrepid,

Now? What do you mean, now? I've always known what some Christians feel. What's that got to do with anything I said?

Regardless -- my point is that, as an atheist, I feel that we have one lifetime to affect whatever change or influence we're going to make. We don't get to make it right in the hereafter because there isn't one other than the one we leave as our footprint.

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Perhaps you are being too sensitive, Intrepid. "As usual in discussions of atheism" doesn't mean "as usual in YOUR discussions".

I appreciate your trying to build a bridge here, JTT. But I really was referring to the usual strawmen in Intrepid's discussions of atheism. Case in point: CI's siblings try to convert him. He tells them "no". One of them gets upset. Responding to this scenario, Intrepid reminds CI that these are still his siblings---as if CI had said anything to suggest he thought otherwise. Also, Intrepid calls for more tolerance---as if declining an invitation constituted intolerance of the invited towards the inviter. I'm sorry, but these are both strawmen. And they are both characteristic of Intrepid's general approach to discussing this issue.

0 Replies

@JPB,

JPB wrote:

Regardless -- my point is that, as an atheist, I feel that we have one lifetime to affect whatever change or influence we're going to make. We don't get to make it right in the hereafter because there isn't one other than the one we leave as our footprint.

It's a very good point!

0 Replies

I am sure CI and his family love and respect one another, beyond these encounters, enough to let it go in the end.

0 Replies

We have a problem of perception here. For someone like Intrepid, it is perfectly reasonable to talk to people about religion, because it forms a part of his world view. But this kind of thing is at the heart of the experience of an atheist. For an atheist, for whom religion forms no part of his or her world view, it is highly unreasonable to be exposed to that, and especially repeatedly. I don't now how old C.I. is, but for my part, at the age of 60, i've heard it all before, too many times. I don't need or want to hear again. If i have told someone that i don't want to hear it again, i am being reasonable, no matter how it appears to them. It is a mark of distinct disrespect to continue to attempt to foist on someone what they have already said they don't want.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

I think you need to engage them in something more positive . Perhaps a debate....

Something like : If you need faith to go to heaven, who's fault is it if you dont have faith ? What about Hindus and Buddhists.... how are they supposed to have faith in a Christian God ? Would God really refuse entry to heaven to someone who was a good man but couldnt have faith ? Doesnt that only mean longer in purgatory before entry to heaven ?

Prior to Jesus dying on the cross, it is believed all people waited in purgatory . This means they were selected for being good people . Therefore it must be possible to be a good man, be in purgatory and awaiting to have faith .

There are other arguments that use their belief against their fundamentalism if you are interested .

0 Replies

@Intrepid,

So, rather than furthering one's own selfish "honesty" you'd advocate an hypocrisy that allows the sibling to feel that her brother's been "saved" so she can sleep at night? Honesty is "selfish" and hypocrisy is... magnanimous? I'm nearly speechless.

But, not quite.

The gift of prayer? She's not asking him to allow her to pray for him. That's not his permission to give. She's praying her heart out hoping against hope that the man will be "SAVED!!!!" so that she can see him in Heaven forever more.

You want him to lie so that his siblings feel better when they go to bed at night.

Do you not get this at all?

0 Replies

@Setanta,

True Set. I consider myself religiously tolerant, but when being proselytised to how do you get across 'no interest' without appearing offensive? I would like a theist here to tell me the correct, effective, way of telling someone who holds a tenet central to their self-view that it has no meaning for you, and in fact talking about it is a little creepy and boring, not unlike, I imagine, how a polite evangelist christian would feel if trapped in a room with someone who passionately believes they were abducted by aliens and wants to tell you all about the aliens' plans for us.

What happens when a couple of guys in nice suits from the church of latter day bike riders knock on the door of an imam? Or are atheists a different ball game to judeo-christian sects? A hole to be filled?

1 Reply

A guy I worked at remodeling with decided I needed to be converted. One day, we walked into his house to get a cold drink as I prepared to go home. He closed the door and grabbed his Bible. He began reading a selected passage, standing in the way to keep me from leaving. It did him no good, of course. About two weeks later, he convinced his minister to knock on my door. I invited the man into the living room and he began to question me about what I have in my life that makes God unnecessary. I pulled out some books and articles and read a few passages to him. By the time he was ready to go, he said, "I guess you told me." He never came back. I have had a number of similar encounters over the years, some more and some less pleasant than that.

0 Replies

@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

Or are atheists a different ball game to judeo-christian sects? A hole to be filled?

An interesting question. When i was in the army, i reported to my last duty station in Virginia, and there, a civilian employee, melodramatically snorting in disgust, took my form 201 (the personnel form for every soldier) "whited-out" one entry, and typed in something different. Before he could stop me, i took the form out of the typewriter, and saw that he had typed "non-christian" in the block for religious preference. Apparently, he saw the world as made up of recognized christian sects, and everybody else. I went to the officer commanding the section, who made him fill in the entire form anew, putting my religious preference in the appropriate block as it had been before--Druid. I chose that because i knew it would piss people off, and i could pretty much tell them whatever i wanted about my religious practices. I told them that my sabbath was from sunset to sunrise every Saturday evening, and that i would need to be in a grove of trees, perferably pine tress, if at all possible.

1 Reply

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know