Ideal age/Now mostly about Religion and Religious Upbringing

[voh]

My mother was raised with the catholic way of believing, and my father was raised in a Dutch Reformed belief. One thing you need to know about is pillarization. It's a phenomenon in the Netherlands and Belgium, where catholics would have their catholic schools, papers, television stations, sporting clubs, dance schools, ice cream salons, etc. The protestants had their own of those, and then there were smaller clubs which grouped together, amongst which were the socialists, the non-believers, etc (sometimes seen as two seperate pillars). So Dutch and Belgian society was segregated (in a vertical sense, so no "we're better than you so we get all the snazzy thing", but while everybody had the same opportunities, you did NOT mix) based on religion. This system broke down in the 60's, and suddenly protestant children would go to catholic dance schools, catholics read protestant papers, and generally the lockdown on belief was released.

Protestants marrying Catholics was a social no-no. Any religious person marrying a non-religious person was a no-no.

My parents grew up in all of that, and decided early on that the segregated lifestyle they'd been born into was not for them, and they denounced their beliefs. They raised me in a secular sense, but through school I was infused with religion. I wouldn't call myself a Christian, not even one that lost faith, but I am a well-educated atheist, raised as such. My grandparents were fervent catholics, but they understood that things had changed and the reaction to the pillars was to break them down and just treat everybody truly equal. That's one of the reasons the Netherlands is such a historically tolerant place. Even the pillars couldn't stop the Dutch from kicking it over and saying "bah to that!" :p

Like I said before, I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what it was that made people want to believe in a god, and I've read the bible a couple of times. Sadly, a long while back, while I was reading it again, my bag was stolen, so I currently only have a tiny (hardly readable) Dutch travel bible, heh.

I'm understanding of the fact that people believe, but I react harshly whenever a religious person tries to tell me I'm bad because I don't believe, or that I'm worth less in the world than them due to it. Really harshly. I don't go out of my way to tell religious people that God doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned, and that I think they might be wrong, so where do they get the right to tell me he does exist, and tell me in no uncertain ways that I am wrong?

So what I do is simple. I allow them to explain. And then I poke holes, and poke some more, until the only thing they can say is "You're an asshole" or "God works in mysterious ways", and I sit back and smile. I haven't won, but at least I've shown them that doubt is to be had. If I can get a religious person to think critically about their belief and base their support in it on their OWN view of it, rather than the peer-pressured view, I've reached my goal.

That's one thing my parents always taught me, and I'm proud to have gotten the message

[Captain Lexington]

I was raised without really bringing up the whole god issue. It wasn't until I was about eight or nine, when I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that I randomly quoted the Babel fish story at dinner. My mom, surprised, looked at me and said 'So you don't really believe in God, huh?' Well, I had never thought about it before. 'No,' is said. 'I suppose I don't.'

Well, years pass and I for some reason become more and more adamant about my atheism, going as far as reading the Skeptic's Annotated Bible (which I still occasionally do for good laugh), and debating with a Christian talk show host live on the air at the Minnesota State Fair.

Well, then I realized I was just being a jerk, and so I stopped arguing with people about it and started arguing against having it matter.

monkey_05_06: I ran into some Mormons while biking down Robert St yesterday, and they were actually quite polite and well-dressed, so I politely declined their offer to bring me to church one of these days, but hinted I might look up their philosophy on the internet. We shook hands, bade each other a nice day, and went our separate ways. If you are this polite in your mission to the Death Star, I am all for it!

[Hammerite]

I would challenge you to find a single argument against homosexuality that doesn't loop back to "because the bible said so."

It's a sick, perverted lifestyle where two men stick stuff up each other's asses and get STDs. That's the main reason why AIDS is spreading (and because of premarital sex/multiple partners).   

In the Bible, the two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah practiced sexually perverted acts like these, and they were burned down by God because the people wouldn't repent. A lot of countries have now legalized gay marriage. Don't you think something like that could happen again?

You're probably dismissing this as "Steel Drummer's bigoted religious point of view", or else getting offended I'd say such a thing.

Well, I have a modern day example of an incident like this.

All of you probably remember Hurricane Katrina. A week before the hurricane hit New Orleans, the city was planning a 'gay pride week', sort of tourist attraction event. Then the hurricane struck. Well, you know the rest of the story.


I don't see why all of you are so adamant on arguing with me. You've heard my views, you've dismissed them, you've seen that I won't change my views, and now you're supposed to let it go and get on with your lives, and off of this subject. I must say I agree with Helm to some degree (not the 14 year old part). You people should just stop trying to defend your atheism/post-modernism/liberalism, I'll stop trying to defend God/Jesus, and we'll let God and "ism's" battle it out on their own, okay? What makes you think someone is 14 if they criticize homosexuality and atheism? 

Why can't this thread be about religious upbringing and not telling yodaman how stupid he's being?

Exactly.                                     

I am all for helping someone see other points of view the exact second he says he's willing to listen. Not when they say 'I am not interested in researching something I condemn'. 

I see yours and everyone else's point of view. The question is, why don't you see mine? As soon as I state my opinion, you (not you specifically, just in general) say 'Fuck that', or 'Fuck God', or 'Go to hell, Christ', or 'You're just a bigoted asshole'. I haven't said anything like that about Allah, or Buddha, or whoever. I would, however say it about the various 'isms', because they don't even believe in any sort of deity. I'd be quicker to criticize a atheist than a Muslim, or a Hindu.

So you're immune to STDs if you're married and heterosexual?

And how can you say that homosexuality caused Hurricane Katrina? if you're going to say that God caused the hurricane because of a gay pride festival, then maybe an alternative theory is that God wanted to kill a big bunch of a black people, so I suppose you support the Ku Klux Klan in that case, do you?

[LimpingFish]

It's the teaching of religious matters, in schools, as fact that I have a problem with. Religion isn't about facts, and memorising pslams and bible passages isn't going to benefit you in any spiritual way.

Teaching religion in school is close to ritualized brain-washing. Conditioning young people to be more receptive to the "accepted" faith of their community.

All organized religions have an agenda, and all organized religion is simply a form of control.

You shouldn't need a middle-man to converse with your chosen God, nor should this middle-man have the right to demand some form of homage or propitiation in your God's name.

If a God is indeed all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful, why should it need to subjugate those whose only wish is to be loved by it?

If there is only one true God, why would it allow those it has created destroy each other in the name of false Gods?

Before you accept a faith, unconditionally, shouldn't you be entitled to ask these questions?

[Redwall]

Hammerite, when somebody plays the I agree with Fred Phelps card, that, if nothing else, should tell you that this is a person you cannot argue with.

[Pesty]

In secondary school however, I guess people were a bit grown up, and it was a different part of Ireland too... so they were a lot more relaxed about their view of god. IE he's just a loving parent who sits in heaven and waits for all his children to come to him so he can party with them. They also believed in evolution, and said that they can't be sure exactly how god created the earth and when he did it, but they believe he's there. Surprising for a bunch of Catholic people, but it was the nicest concept of god I've ever known. They also all went to church of their own accord on Sundays, so it wasn't like they were only half-heartedly believing in him... it was really just what they believed a good god to be like.

FTw.

I like this view on God a lot. If I were to buckle down and decide I believed in God, this is the view I would have.

I'd like to share my religious upbringing, since I find it interesting. My mother was raised Catholic, and while she may not be Catholic any longer, she definately believes in God and has a lot of faith in God's plans for the world. She believes in karma, evolution, and doesn't let her belief in God conflict with her belief in science. My dad is more or less lacking in any real faith system at all, for the most part. If he's a spiritual person, he definately doesn't show it. Neither of them ever tried to force their beliefs on me and taught me to make my own choices on what I believed.

I have only been to church once in my entire life, when I was in elementary school and spent the night at a Catholic friend's house. It was a bizarre experience to me, because my parents never really talked about religion. I remember being completely lost during Sunday School, not knowing any of the subject matter they were discussing. The whole Jesus wafer thing was lost on me too, and I was disappointed that we only got one wafer.

My mother always talked about God, so I had a vague idea of who He was, but I never really understood the concept. It wasn't until I was in 8th grade that I learned about religion. I went to a school that was mostly mormons, and before school started, they would all go to a special class at the mormon church across the street. I was friends with a mormon kid named Andrew, who was dating my friend Paula at the time. One day after the class at the church, Andrew came right to school and broke up with Paula, because she wasn't mormon and he learned at church that morning that anyone who wasn't a mormon was going to hell, and he didn't want to date anyone who was going to hell. This exchange colored my impression on the whole religion thing. It seemed really sad to me that people let religion control their whole life like that. The more I learned about the control people let their religions have over them, the more I disliked the idea of being part of a religion.

For a few years I called myself an atheist, but I found the whole viewpoint depressing, though I was a teenager and I didn't really have a proper idea of what atheism was. I tried Buddhism for a while, because the gentle beliefs of Buddhists appealed to me, but again, I lacked the knowledge to follow it properly. This seemed to be the same for every religion I tried in my teenage years, so eventually I gave up on the whole idea of religion, preferring to make my own belief system.

Now, I would consider myself somewhat of a spiritual person, but I refuse to put a name to my spirituality. I believe that there's more to the universe than we know about, some sort of cosmic force that equates to the concept of God. I believe in karma and a necessary universal balance, which is something I gained from my mother. In our hardest times growing up, she has always said "It will work out for us." and it always has. But I also believe that you make your own destiny and that karma will only work in your favor if you make the effort.

So, that's it for my Serious Post of the Year. Now I'm going back to insulting people randomly.

[Helm]

Yeah I like now though I consider myself a rational, positivistic person mostly, I have a very strong inner belief that 'it'll work out for me/my family in the end'. I don't attribute this to anything than blind optimism, which I believe to be a safety switch/brain function that stops me from killing myself when I go through a bit of depression or somesuch, rather than any sort of 'spirit' or other higher entity.

[Captain Lexington]

I know I kinda missed the premarital sex bandwagon, but I'd like to say as long as two adults who take adequate protection and are willing to accept responsibility for their actions can have a one night stand or something like that. Of course, that could just be my raging teenage hormones talking.

[Pesty]

Yeah I like now though I consider myself a rational, positivistic person mostly, I have a very strong inner belief that 'it'll work out for me/my family in the end'. I don't attribute this to anything than blind optimism, which I believe to be a safety switch/brain function that stops me from killing myself when I go through a bit of depression or somesuch, rather than any sort of 'spirit' or other higher entity.

I don't think of it as a spirit or a higher being of any type. That'd be sort of silly (no offense, God Friends!). Just a sort of... force of nature, like the wind or stars or atoms or adorable kitties or whatever. Nothing mystical about it, I'm sure there's a rational, scientific explanation behind it. It's just an explanation that we can't figure out at this point in time. Maybe someday in the future there will be a formula for God!

[Erenan]

I don't believe in the Christian God any longer, but I still have some hope that maybe there is something more interesting to the universe's origins than something completely materialistic. And when I say more interesting, I mean specifically to me, because there are plenty of people who find the idea of the universe existing without someone having caused it to be much more interesting. In general, I find personal interaction more interesting than natural phenomena. I like science and all that jazz, yeah, but in fiction I like character driven plot. So I think that inclines me toward the idea that the universe is the result of a personal action. It's a romantic idea for me. Of course, I'm simply inclined towards this. This doesn't mean that I believe it is true. What I believe is that I really don't have a clue about how the universe got to be existing.

[Pumaman]

Having Faith about somthing when there is no evidence to prove its existance does not prove your devition to God. It mearly shows the rest of us how gullible or stupid you are.
I can understand people in poor countries with no education believing in "God" but why the hell do Educated people still insist in believeing?

I have to say, I'm amazed at how strongly some of you are attacking religion and the people who believe in it. I know a few people, both Christian and Muslim, who would punch you squarely in the face if you said something like that to them.

Why is it so hard to accept that some people want to believe in a higher power? I've known a couple of people who have suffered an unexpected personal tragedy, and as a result have turned to religion for some comfort. When the people close to you aren't able to help, what's the harm in believing in God to help you get through the bad times?


As for religious upbringing, I was one of those kids who was brought up by two quite strongly Christian parents, and dragged along to church every Sunday without fail. However, I had a rather short attention span and was unable to concentrate for the length of a service, so whatever message the vicar was trying to get across was lost while I was fidgeting and complaining about how uncomfortable the seats were.

Still, this continued until I was 14, my parents using the excuse that they weren't allowed to leave me at home on my own as a reason to drag me along. As a result of that I grew increasingly resentful of the church, and it turned from being a mild disinterest at the age of 10 to a passionate hate by the age of 14. Of course, thinking back the church did nothing to deserve this hatred, it was just a result of teenage rebellion against being forced to do something I didn't want to do.

I know that my folks are still disappointed that I don't believe, but at least nowadays they've come to accept it and moved on. End of rather dull story.

[Hammerite]

I personally don't care how the universe came to be, and I think that if there is a God, then he doesn't really care about us praising him overly (because if he wanted praise, you'd think that he'd make a few announcements, don't you?).
So in conclusion, i think that the unvierse was caused by something, and to all you OTT creationists:
who says God couldn't cause Big Bang and/or evolution?
and it is said that the big bang was caused by the collision of two elements. where did THEY come from?

[Huw Dawson]

As a practicing catholic, I suppose I might as well act upon instinct and type some words into my computer on this.

Firstly, a point on the magic comment - some people do believe in "magic" these days, and their religion is called Wicca. Nice religion too, and I agree with alot of it's principles. Of course, I am apparently not allowed to think this due to my faith. This, immediatly, is an example of how some people here have completly misunderstood how organised religions work. The general fact is that they don't. The church, no matter how big it is, will 90% of the time be your local holy man, and that is it. Nobody really gives a damn if your apparently the greatest sinners in the entire world, you showed up to support the community, and that's all that matters.

Secondly, I might as well poke some people in eye here for argueing heaven and hell...

If God is all seeing, all knowing, and most importantly all loving, it is logically impossible for there to be a hell of any kind. You can't be all loving and then send someone bad to hell for eternity. Hence, here's a fundamental pillar of my own personal opinion... hang on, damn. I just screwed up my own ideas with my own mental arguements. Damn religion!

Anyway... no, damn, gone there too.

Look, I can basically draw my line in the sand based on my very fundamental if-I-forget-this-I'll-probably-end-up-in-a-padded-cell belief --> By me existing, God must exist, purely due to the fact that sentient beings exist. Hence, I have no actual problems with anyone for or against religion, because for pete's sake it doesn't actually matter until we shuffle off this mortal coil, does it. Sentience proves that science cannot prove everything. Science cannot, for example, ever say what I am thinking of right now.

My personal problem is my very hypocritical views of religion in that for 1 hour on a sunday I am a 100% catholic, the rest of the week my mind is buzzing over with zen problems like "does anything I actually do actually matter?" etcetera. Very Jekkel and Hyde.

What else of value can I put into these collections of thoughts? Well, I could always go for the poke in the eye for my personal hate I suppose - the ear clampers. I try and put forward scientific proof to evangelists and I get a responce of dismissal of the question. That irks me.

What REALLY irks me is the fact that ear clampers discount their own right to free will, basically making them slaves to politics, especially in America. No offence Americans, but my usual problem with american politics in general is that thanks to ear clampers, we have GWB in office at this very moment. Add that onto the fact that many evangelist groups seem so blind to this that they carry on regardless, despite it being so obvious that they're free will is happily consisting of voting the one that their religion, not they themselves, have picked into office. Thank God religion is so much more dilute in this country...

Hmmm... I just realised that I can't actually remember what my point was. Considering that religious debate between religions is pointless and religious debate between theist and athiest only serves as a purpose to observe who can shout louder...

- Huw (I really hope I haven't inadvertantly offended anyone)

PS: God exists, and he is a giant blue muffin that I ate last week. Someone disprove me.

[Steel Drummer]

I personally don't care how the universe came to be, and I think that if there is a God, then he doesn't really care about us praising him overly (because if he wanted praise, you'd think that he'd make a few announcements, don't you?).
So in conclusion, i think that the unvierse was caused by something, and to all you OTT creationists:
who says God couldn't cause Big Bang and/or evolution?
and it is said that the big bang was caused by the collision of two elements. where did THEY come from?

Well if there was a God, he wouldn't waste His time flaunting His power by showing that He exists. It's kind of like CJ. He's just... there

[Erenan]

Would you agree that God flaunts his power numerous times in the Bible?

[Steel Drummer]

Those were different times. A lot of people nowadays have totally rejected God, and the world is a lot more corrupt than it was back in those days.

[Raggit]

I personally don't care how the universe came to be, and I think that if there is a God, then he doesn't really care about us praising him overly (because if he wanted praise, you'd think that he'd make a few announcements, don't you?).
So in conclusion, i think that the unvierse was caused by something, and to all you OTT creationists:
who says God couldn't cause Big Bang and/or evolution?
and it is said that the big bang was caused by the collision of two elements. where did THEY come from?

Well if there was a God, he wouldn't waste His time flaunting His power by showing that He exists. It's kind of like CJ. He's just... there

Well, SORT of like CJ.  CJ has a better disposition, and I really, really mean that.  I mean, God is all "worship me and be my friend," (since when do your friends want you to WORSHIP them?  Friendships should be equal.)  And then, if you don't worship him and be his "friend," then he damns you to Hell, and treats you like crap before you get there.

[evenwolf]

What part of God is just there?  His elbow?   His beard?   What is "there"?   I thought Jesus was the only physical manifestation... so god actually isn't there at all.

[Steel Drummer]

He's everywhere. Omniscient, omnipotent, etc.

[evenwolf]

"Dear God,

I love monotheism.   Thanks for coming along after thousands of years and setting everyone straight.  Silly Greeks and Egyptians!   Anyway....   so which one of you is reading this?  The son?   the father?  Or that kooky ghost?   Question:  does the ghost have to ask one of you other two to open his letters?  Or has he mastered that skill Patrick Swayze learned from that guy in the subway? OK, peace!"