I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU BELIEVE!
By Dano
I don't care what anyone believes as long as it doesn't affect the health, wealth, and welfare of their neighbors. (Meaning me)
Christians feel threatened by unbelievers because they don't validate the thing, that is supposed to insure their immortality. They see every apostate as another leak in the dam that they have built, to ward off death. If we don't believe like they do, it weakens their faith, that they will never die.
The point being, that it "DOES MATTER" what you believe. Your fundamentalist belief can keep you aloof from me, and keep you from responding to my gestures of friendship. It can poison your perception of who I am. If you are my brother or sister, your fundamentalist Christian beliefs can divide our family. You can live your whole life, letting silly irrational concepts like Satan, and original sin, keep you from visiting me, because your religious instruction book teaches you, that my lack of belief in your mythology, is evil.
If you are my wife, your quiet, non-confrontational, closeted, Christianity can destroy our marriage, and cause you to maintain a seething hostility toward me, because your Bible promotes that attitude.
Your belief in a literal interpretation of the bible can influence school boards, and water down the hard science, that so many courageous men gave their lives to. Charlatans taking advantage of your emotional fundamentalist, literal, reliance on the bible, as your sole source for archaeology, have built Christian theme parks that grossly distort, and outright lie about whole branches of scientific knowledge, and you naively expose your children to them. The damage done to education in America by this misinformation is just starting to be calculated, by lower levels of scientific skills in our children.
Your beliefs in a particular set of supernatural tenets come into conflict with similar religious, dogma that has been instilled other people, in other countries to the point that they feel threatened and want to kill you and everybody else in your heathen country, full of infidel pigs.
Deeply religious young Muslims flew airplanes into the world trade center, because their religion taught them to hate Christians. They remember how the pope sent an army to their country and killed anyone who wouldn't profess a belief in the divinity of Jesus
Certainly much good has been done in the name of religion, but the divisions it has caused in the human race, and the unceasing hostility germinated by even the slightest deviations in dogma, make our world a very dangerous place today.
I don't believe in the bible because, the brain that allows me to function at a high level of efficiency in this life, simply will not allow me to pervert that rational, logical way of thinking, just so that I will have less fear of death. I would rather live with the uncertainty of what will happen to me when I die, than to download a bunch of corrupted software into the computer between my ears.
I am just one little untutored voice, in what has been a gathering chorus of voices, by rational people, some who have authored brilliant books with so much pure, unadulterated, dazzling logic, and common sense, that they are impossible to put down.
Non of us non Christians know for sure what happens to our "essence" (whatever it is that makes us who we are), when we die, but most of us don't want to be told that this life is evil and not worth living.
Sure we would like to "transition" to a better place when we leave this one, but we want to live this life as fully as possible, without a lot of fear, and loathing from a made up God. We want to use our brains, question everything, and look forward to the mystery of each new day. WE WANT TO GROW!
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I don't care what anyone believes as long as it doesn't affect the health, wealth, and welfare of their neighbors. (Meaning me)
Christians feel threatened by unbelievers because they don't validate the thing, that is supposed to insure their immortality. They see every apostate as another leak in the dam that they have built, to ward off death. If we don't believe like they do, it weakens their faith, that they will never die.
The point being, that it "DOES MATTER" what you believe. Your fundamentalist belief can keep you aloof from me, and keep you from responding to my gestures of friendship. It can poison your perception of who I am. If you are my brother or sister, your fundamentalist Christian beliefs can divide our family. You can live your whole life, letting silly irrational concepts like Satan, and original sin, keep you from visiting me, because your religious instruction book teaches you, that my lack of belief in your mythology, is evil.
If you are my wife, your quiet, non-confrontational, closeted, Christianity can destroy our marriage, and cause you to maintain a seething hostility toward me, because your Bible promotes that attitude.
Your belief in a literal interpretation of the bible can influence school boards, and water down the hard science, that so many courageous men gave their lives to. Charlatans taking advantage of your emotional fundamentalist, literal, reliance on the bible, as your sole source for archaeology, have built Christian theme parks that grossly distort, and outright lie about whole branches of scientific knowledge, and you naively expose your children to them. The damage done to education in America by this misinformation is just starting to be calculated, by lower levels of scientific skills in our children.
Your beliefs in a particular set of supernatural tenets come into conflict with similar religious, dogma that has been instilled other people, in other countries to the point that they feel threatened and want to kill you and everybody else in your heathen country, full of infidel pigs.
Deeply religious young Muslims flew airplanes into the world trade center, because their religion taught them to hate Christians. They remember how the pope sent an army to their country and killed anyone who wouldn't profess a belief in the divinity of Jesus
Certainly much good has been done in the name of religion, but the divisions it has caused in the human race, and the unceasing hostility germinated by even the slightest deviations in dogma, make our world a very dangerous place today.
I don't believe in the bible because, the brain that allows me to function at a high level of efficiency in this life, simply will not allow me to pervert that rational, logical way of thinking, just so that I will have less fear of death. I would rather live with the uncertainty of what will happen to me when I die, than to download a bunch of corrupted software into the computer between my ears.
I am just one little untutored voice, in what has been a gathering chorus of voices, by rational people, some who have authored brilliant books with so much pure, unadulterated, dazzling logic, and common sense, that they are impossible to put down.
Non of us non Christians know for sure what happens to our "essence" (whatever it is that makes us who we are), when we die, but most of us don't want to be told that this life is evil and not worth living.
Sure we would like to "transition" to a better place when we leave this one, but we want to live this life as fully as possible, without a lot of fear, and loathing from a made up God. We want to use our brains, question everything, and look forward to the mystery of each new day. WE WANT TO GROW!
To monitor comments posted to this topic, use
.
Comments
Slam! This hits the nail right on the head, Dano. Honestly, do you that think if this was "Ex-Unicornist.net", that people would file in here in droves to take issue with our non-belief in unicorns? lol! 'Not bloody likely.
There is zero logical reason to believe one will survive death...........once you remove the greedy desire for it.
Abrahamic religions have made the world a more dangerous place in every time, every place. The belief in a great eternal cause that justifies any manner of temporal abuse gives power to those that lead that cause.
Frank Herbert said it best: "Power attracts the corruptible, absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible."
Those who follow the god associated with the mythical Abraham may produce the occasional do-really-gooder but these are really just the pawns of a cult that gives personal and political power to cynical leaders. Fuck em.
Christians just can not fathom the reality that non religious people are not AFRAID. They think that their fear is normal, healthy and rational. The fear I lived with for sixteen years was torturous. Christians can't concieve of a life lived without fear. I thought they were supposed to live with the certainly of their salvation, but you see, their scriptures continually contradict themselves leaving one always in doubt of their eternal destination.
Thanks Dano for another thought provoking post.
I appreciated what you said about living in fear. None of us wants to admit we are fightened--least of all me--but it is important that we do so. We need to open up and say that religion is based on fear.
I grew up in a church that taught that one could lose one's salvation. If you sinned enough, god would turn his back on you and you would go to hell, so most of the members lived in terror of "backsliding". This seems to be an exception; most xristians who come in here are the "once saved, always saved" variety.
It is an exception, I suppose, because most people can not live under that kind of pressure. Nervous breakdowns were not uncommon. Many people were on tranquilizers. Married couples broke up-it is hard to live with a nut. Two nuts is impossible.
We see how fucking crazy this becomes. They regarded divorce as a terrible sin, and yet their religion drove them into divorce. I am so glad to be out of that mess. When I think that I could have married one of those whacked-out women.........oh jesus.
Glad to have read your post.
...their scriptures continually contradict themselves leaving one always in doubt of their eternal destination.
Which puts power in the hands of priests and pastors. The believer needs an authority figure to interpret scripture, and the authority figure can tailor that interpretation to fit his or her political goals. The constant fear and doubt along with the control of pleasure helps to maintain compliance. Its an effective control system, it works best when the believer is poorly educated. The fact that it is destructive to the believer's mental health also helps maintain compliance, since the believer is likely to turn to their priest or pastor for help.
"Your fundamentalist belief can keep you aloof from me, and keep you from responding to my gestures of friendship. It can poison your perception of who I am. If you are my brother or sister, your fundamentalist Christian beliefs can divide our family.
As I am beginning to be more bold about my Atheism, I am finding this part to be true. It sickens me to see how people I've known for years, or even my whole life, can treat me with such contempt. It's not like I woke up one morning and decided to kick them in the face, but that is the kind of reaction I get. All because I decided I like being sane. Incredible.
For reading my little rant, and for your comments, boomSLANG, jfraysse, Joe, Nvrgoingbk, ryan, alanh, Shelikesthesound, and ted.
I know you all have experienced these, not too subtle, reactions from people, when they find out you are a non believer in mythology.
I live in NC, where there is a Baptist church on every corner.
I have this one neighbor who was helping me do some tree cleanup in our little subdivision after a big ice storm. He must have asked me four times to come to his Baptist church and each time I told him that I didn't go to church. Ever since that time when I see him or his wife and kids, they look at me like I am an Alien from outer space.
I have also experienced the other damage to relationships, caused by Christian bigotry, mentioned in my post, as I know you all have.
Dan
I agree with you, that there is surely greed and desire that feeds the Christian who allows their belief to consume them. There is immortality of course, but... on a more concrete level, there is identity. We each neurally loop and it’s in that looping/feedback loop process that one is able to know the existence of a specific state of being, and most times if they know how to read psych-ques where a possible link is broken.
Break the link in the wrong place, and a person has no conscience, break the loop in another place, they aren't even conscious, stop the flow of the looping, and we see what happens with pent up energy that has no release point... aggression sexually and psychologically.
Psychiatrists have to take oaths, to ensure they don't unethically manipulate the natural environment, it causes conflict in many of them I'm sure, but each person has a right to live a free life, in my opinion... and I agree... a right to live a free life, doesn't equate to a right to interfere with others/mine... Take Care
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