Thread: am i intolerant for having anti-christian tendencies?

Originally Posted by ClouD

Honestly, I tend to be disgusted by Christianity. I lose whatever pseudo-respect I might have for a person when it comes to their idiocy.

I find life a lot more interesting greeting others as equals and seeing through their eyes as well as my own.

just thought i'd point out

Originally Posted by cygnus

well, look. dannon's response below was basically the type of advice i was hoping for.

i said i was looking for advice from like-minded people. why would i want to hear from christians that i am insulting them and my intolerance knows no limits?

really, why would you post here about that unless you only read the title of the thread and not its contents? do so many people skip the body of the original post just so they can drop by and confuse things, distorting the intent of the OP?

if you would actually read my posts you would see that i posted the original topic to figure out how i can reconcile my mostly verified criticism of certain aspects of christianity with my desire to not get carried away with wantonly demonizing people.

maybe some day we'll have a more constructive way to discuss this kind of thing.

this has steered off course since the response below. unless you have something constructive to post, just ignore this thread.

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

I look down on Christians also.
If they keep it private I can look past it.
If they are open-minded but just happen to admire Jesus Christ for his myth that is cool. Hey, I even admire Jesus.
But people who try to shape the world according to what a book says and who think that they are saved and everyone who doesn't believe what they do is damned, I have no respect for that.
I have no respect for people who try to make one feel guilty.
I also have anger towards what Christianity has done to the world and other people like you do. I have anger towards anyone who can take a message for loving everyone unconditionally and turning into an excuse for genocide, torture, etc.

Are we intolerant? Yes, we are, but maybe not enough.
But, really, we should try to look past it in individuals and just see them as another human like ourselves, no matter how misguided. But for Christianity as a whole, we should be intolerant to it, as well as any organized religion. Organized religion is the root of evil in my opinion. Unorganized Pagan Spirituality and mysticism is cool by me.

THIS!

there are enough threads about how lame christianity is.

Originally Posted by really

Why's that? Do you think all Christians are alike?

That's not the point.

Belief disgusts me. Bigotry and inconsideration specifically. Slapping a term to yourself seems no less stupid to me either.

Why's that? Do you think all Christians are alike?

This wasn't addressed to me but I made a similar point so I'll also respond.

I don't treat all Christians as if they are the same because they are not. There are varying degrees of belief. I still automatically think less of Christians for believing in this nonsense, but the actual degree varies considerably.

It can vary from "I generally respect that person a lot but they're being silly there" to "I have complete contempt for this person".

I can also respect a person in one or more dimensions, or as a whole whilst still thinking less of them in regards to their religious beliefs.

It seems like your tendancy to "think less of" christians isn't so much intolerant as it is just plain biased.

One can be tolerant yet disagree...in fact, I'm inclined to think that's the inherent benefit of tolerance, in most cases.

If you aren't worried about eliminating bias, then I'm not sure that "thinking less" of someone is intolerant in and of itself.



As a sidenote though...in my humble opinion: in a more idealistic scenario, everyone would be able to see each other as equals and not think less of anyone for any reason...but this involves eliminating not just intolerance, but the all of the bias that typically forms the basis for practicing such intolerance.

Originally Posted by ClouD

That's not the point.

Belief disgusts me. Bigotry and inconsideration specifically. Slapping a term to yourself seems no less stupid to me either.

Fair enough, I can see why. You're just referring to religious beliefs? What about beliefs that bring humans together; i.e. simple, non-religious positive beliefs?

I guess you also mean those beliefs that divide oneself from others (egotistically, narcissistically, etc.), as compared to those that unite.

Originally Posted by cygnus

obviously i am asking this question to other non-christians...


i think i should be tolerant of other people's beliefs, not impose mine on others, and so forth... i don't hate christians or anyone else, but when i discover that someone is christian i begin to think less of them.

there are so many things i have against christianity, and i often think of the many things it can be held accountable for. i don't want to get into that here because that would lead to another huge discussion, and it's easy to go on and on..

so... it seems i am prejudiced against christians.

including when it comes to my family. my parents are not christian (although they were brought up that way) and they never tried very hard to make me conform to whatever standards they were raised with. as a teenager they never stood in my way when i was trying to figure things out for myself. but the rest of my family is mostly christian and i'm somewhat ashamed because of it. this is partly because of our history - i have a lot of respect for the certain types of paganism and native religion practiced by relatives further back in my family tree. i am disappointed that i was never allowed to be a part of that because my more immediate family forgot about it to be 'naturalized' in the christian community.


does anyone else have similar thoughts? i want to be less bitter when it comes to christianity in the context of culture and history, and maybe more open to certain people around me, but it's hard!

Jumping back to the original poster for a moment...no, you are not intolerant. Smug, yes. Intolerant, no. There's nothing wrong with being a bit smug from time to time, either. You're just convinced that your solution to the great problem makes more sense than the Christian view, and so see yourself as being more intelligent or something similar. Had you said something like, "All Christians deserve to die in a fiery pit of lava," then yes, that would be intolerance. What you are expressing is smugness and possibly arrogance (which I, too, am guilty of). Embrace it.

Originally Posted by Mario92

What you are expressing is smugness and possibly arrogance (which I, too, am guilty of). Embrace it.

oh i most definitely embrace it when it's around christmas time and i hear such shitty music

Cygnus get yourself a 5th of Hennessey turn off all the lights in your house and bump this. It will change your whole perspective and crank the volume.

gaaahahaha i can't believe you just linked me to a phil collins song!

i believe bill hicks said something like... 'i couldn't be adopted by pro-lifers. i'll live with the satan worshiping family - you know - the ones with the good albums'

(start personal opinon)

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Most christians that I know are very moral and good people.

It's the people who use Christianity as a guise for evil that give it a bad name. My personal belief is that with very few exceptions, every war is the result of religion.

Christianity isn't fubar'd, people are!!!!!
(End personal opinon)
As a side note, have any of you listened to George Carlin? He makes some rather accurate comments about religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAj4hcY6BuA

Sexuality is not a choice, like skin colour

And I have heard many times on here that religion is not a choice either.

Originally Posted by davej

And I have heard many times on here that religion is not a choice either.

The concept of choosing exists because of our ability to speculate/imagine about the future and past. It's not some objective force. It exists for the sake of argument, to symbolize an action we take willingly. This is what we strech temporaly and say, you will be able to choose, or you could've chosen. Both are true, but since we live in the present, totally meaningless (apart from what previous choices can teach us, or what speculation about choices can teach us).

Skin color, sexual attractions, religious convictions are all potential choices, meaning actions we can take or have taken.

But that doesn't change the reality of choice as the force which exists in the present. Let's say there is a drug to "cure" homosexuality or Christianity and somebody doesn't want to take it. That does mean the person chose B instead of A. But, what it also means is that the choice stems from a static brain/psyche, making it ultimately deterministic.

So in theory, I think I could become a Christian. It would take extreme brainwashing techniques and brain surgery, but what's important is that in essence, I can choose to become a Christian.
...What is stopping me from making this choice? It is my inablity to make myself go through brainwashing and surgery to end up believing something that I think is completely crazy. And at this point is where choice doesn't exist. A human will at a certain moment in time always be able to believe, think, do only one thing, making it deterministic. A proud homosexual will never consider therapy, a proud member of some x-race will never consider changing his skin colour, some rational thinker will never consider getting brainwashed just so he could become irrational etc.

Now I know people like to end their reality buble when it just completely covers their own subjective experience. But if we want to encompass the whole reality we can detect at the moment, we have to be rational, scientific, and thus also objective. This includes the unintuitive mind/body, subjective/objective, free will/determinsim dualities.

So yeah, in some utopian future with neural interfaces and nanobots, I'm sure sexuality and skin colour will reach the illusory nature of choice religious conviction occupies today. It just wont change the absolute nature of somebodies values and principles and thus the choices a person makes - making choices determinsitice and "not really choices".

a proud member of some x-race will never consider changing his skin colour

Unless you are Michael Jackson HAHAHA

Originally Posted by davej

Unless you are Michael Jackson HAHAHA

He had Vitiligo, he didn't change it himself.

Originally Posted by davej

And I have heard many times on here that religion is not a choice either.

I actually have neurological evidence to up that statement.

http://www.wired.com/science/discove.../mind_decision