Don't Expect This Site To Change Anybody's Religious Opinion

by minimus 65 Replies latest jw friends

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    Atheists here are very prickly compared to what I see in real life. There seems to be an overreaction to the Witnessses which I well understand. It is just that I know no one at two major universities who constantly must prove atheism to others. There is not the hostility to believers or even the view that only one answer can be right. Perhaps it is an East Coast thing. When I am up walking around Columbia University or Princeton, I expect the vast majority of science and math majors to be atheist. Rather than discuss the sins of believing, one is more likely to discuss music or TV shows.

    I know my reaction to fundamentalism is untoward. The WT might make more atheists in the long run than it makes Witnesses. In this part of the world, if everyone set out to correct what they viewed as false teaching, the violence would be uncontrolable. The Army would have to be called in. What is so wrong with liking traditional things? I love the history (well, the good history parts), the hymns, organs, the paegentry. The coffee hour camraderie. Plus, the freedom to believe exactly what I choose to believe. The different styles of service appeal to me. I love the older version but that is what I first encountered. Incense is big to me. Looking at stained glass windows is nice.

    I was not raised in the faith. Of course, I realize that somehow I adore everything the WT is not. I was an atheist in college until I was in Elaine Pagel's course. She removed any thought of religion as being magical or just happening. There were always political and economic reasons for things.

    Evangelism bothers me far more than atheists. I wonder how I would feel if I had never been a Witness.

  • DJS
    DJS

    BOTR,

    As many of us have expressed in previous posts, most of us atheists don't give one single thought to theists in our day to day lives. I used to be one, many of my friends are theists/Christians and I live my life asocially/apolitically and a/religiously. That hasn't anything to do with carrying on a debate on this site. If your atheist friends were debating theists they would get just as frustrated at mantras, beliefs, superstitions and a reliance on discredited 2000 and 3500 year old scrolls. Place the frustration you sense from sone of us in context. I never discuss religion outside of this forum, and I would prefer to never discuss it here, other than perhaps what type of coffin we would choose for the demins of the Borg.

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    But so what? I ask the same of myself. Certain members here trigger me immensely. They are always fundamentalist who evangelize. I don't encounter such people in real life b/c I work hard to not encounter them. When I lived in the Bible belt of PA, I even changed laundromats if I found fundie lit from the owner.

    Something about the Witnesses and this forum makes the feelings too intense. I know that someone corrected me and admonished me based on an internal brain process. I was livid at the presumption. There are no Jesus or religious courts in this country. Maybe b/c none of us had any legitimacy within the Witnesses. Discussion was impossible. I don't know. If this is heaven, with constant put downs of each side, let me go to hell.

    Does the same thing trigger you? Some believer telling you what to believe when you've thought about it for years. I find such people very presumptuous. Don't let me get started about Jesus is my boyfriend orgasmic believers. There is a difference between what I belief and how I act. I don't want to be preached to by anyone.

  • DJS
    DJS

    BOTR, I understand. I avoided this site for a decade after I knew of its existence. I wanted to live my life and not immerse it in such thoughts. I only particiapte now because I am presumptuous (arrogant? pompous?) to think I can assist others on developing a better way to THINK. Thanks for your thoughts. Nice job.

  • snare&racket
    snare&racket

    I personally will keep encouraging people to be open minded and critically appraise their religious beliefs. All the things I wish someone told me.

    Thank you minimus for warning us that some people will not listen, very useful to have a thread on this.

    snare x

  • minimus
    minimus

    Lol, snare.

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