to not understand: "Don't criticize my choices/beliefs."

[Hullygully]

This is something people say a lot on here.

I don't understand it. Genuinely.

What is wrong with disagreeing with someone and saying so and giving reasons?

If you are secure in your choices/beliefs, what do you care what other people say?

If you have some doubts, why not hear the criticism/questioning with an open mind and perhaps rethink? Or become secure in your choice/belief as a result.

It doesn't make sense.

I try to be agreeable, but then I have wine and forget.
Best. Line. Ever.

Most original religion stuff was about explaining the inexplicable: weather, things growing and making baby things, natural disasters.

Pretty soon after that, the priests realised they were on to a winner and started making rules; some of these were love and service, others were cut out their hearts and offer them to the gods.

Now, most people will agree on this, even religious people, inasmuch as it refers to religions other than their own; they will generally disagree on the 'truth' of one or other belief system, and whether a god or gods had anything to do with it.

Anyway, I think we do have a predisposition to seek explanations and patterns. I don't think we have a 'gene for belief'.

This is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand, and the thread has undoubtedly moved on, but I find religion fascinating.

"man created god", badtime?

gordy I have noticed a lot of mindless atheists/antitheists who have been influenced by Dawkins etc without really understanding what the issues are. Some people are just dicks.

I didn't actually say that. But yes, I believe so. I haven't seen anything to indicate otherwise.

YANBU - DH is v catholic, I'm atheist. He has a genuine faith but that doesn't stop him condemning the Catholic church as a corporation for the magdalen laundries, for the endless abuse cases, etc. He also teaches DS to question everything - a simple 'because it's my faith' is not good enough.

Dh and I have had some storming heated debates over things - but he would never expect me not to pass comment on his beliefs in the name of 'faith'.

I believe it too, badtime - it's one of those I wish I'd said it first phrases

oh and Gordy - that's dire about your BIL. While I will never understand DH's beliefs, I would never belittle them as less valid than my own choice not to believe.

YANBU

I respect everyone's right to have an opinion, but that doesn't mean I have to respect everyone's opinion. They're different things.

I like the quote "opinions are like arseholes....everyone has them and most of them are full of shit"

What gets my goat the most is people who say "Oh so I'm not even ALLOWED an opinion any more??" when you disagree with them.

Yes....you're allowed an opinion....I'm also allowed to tell you I think it's ill informed, judgemental nonsense.

I try to be agreeable, but then I have wine and forget.
...reminded me of this:

I get this an awful lot. I get involved in religious & woo type threads from time to time (as a sceptic/atheist) and while I never, ever make personal attacks on anyone I don't mind referring to the things they claim to believe as "crap", "bollocks" and "bullshite" etc. That's because they are.

I have lost count of the number of times someone has decided to be offended - I've been called a bigot more than once & one silly woman called me an alcoholic for pointing out that the spooky feeling she got alone in a school building at night was probably not due to the lost souls of dead children.

Yes, people do have every right to believe whatever they like & I have the right to say that's it's nonsense. This idea that we have to be extra respectful of someone's "beliefs" is ludicrous. If your beliefs are so precious to you that you will be mortally offended by being contradicted, then keep them to yourself.

I don't respect religion & I don't respect faith. Neither have done anything to earn my respect so they don't get it.

it's not about respecting religion though - it's about respecting individuals right to a faith even if you don't have one yourself.

If you don't share a belief it's doesn't automatically give you the right to be rude or crude to those who do - you can disagree without being obnoxious about it surely?

YANBU
and I agree with you Hully

Of course I automatically have the right. You think I don't "have the right" to say that homeopathy is bullshit?

And, you seem to have missed the part of my post where I quite clearly (I thought) said that people have the right to believe whatever they like.

But what they have chosen to believe isn't entitled to respect. Why ever should it be?

gotta go out

keep the thread civilised

Or listening to other people's opinions of differing topics can be interesting.

Years ago, I was on a residential course for work.
At dinner, I happened to choose the vegetarian option, only to be subjected to the bullying course leader pointedly asking me why I became a vegetarian, demanding I justify it without giving me chance to reply, then holding forth on his view that it was all rubbish and I should be glad to eat food at all without being picky.

He not only made me feel extremely uncomfortable, he embarrassed the whole table.

I suppose what I'm saying is that, when faced with a bigot, "Please don't question my beliefs" is a perfectly acceptable retort.

I just wish it shut them up

Or just punch them in the face, that'll do it.

That's another thing though, the unquestioning belief that the majority opinion is the right one, so veggies are "freaky," socialists need to "grow up and live in the real world" etc

Also it's nonsense as all original religious stuff is about love and peace and tolerance. Not murdering and locking up women etc
Er, ever read the Old Testament?

I find (as a vegetarian) it very awkward when I am at work dinners so don't know people and someone starts the, "So, why are you a veggie then?"
And everyone looks at you with their forks poised over their slices of cow and you think, um...if I tell you, you will all think I am insulting you...

yy, sorry catkind, that was lazy of me. I was thinking of Christianity, not the old testament.

I respect anyone's right to have any opinion or belief they want.

But if it's stupid, dangerous or wrong I will tell them.

If you never challenge a persons beliefs/opinions etc then how can that person grow...

Met a person the other day who insisted that it was ok to call a person half cast. It isn't and now he knows it - Was I wrong to point that out to him?

I think that person was an unpleasant dick, Tanith - but a bigot? Over vegetarianism? I think that makes a bit of a mockery of the abuses at the hands of real bigots some people in the world face. But that he was a bullying arsehole is without doubt.

But - I should have been clearer earlier. I think it's the height of rudeness, ignorance and intolerance to march up to someone without invitation & for no particular reason and tell them that what they believe is rubbish, or whatever. Intelligent people don't do this, and neither do decent people. I never have. I've never strayed onto a prayer thread here, or commented on a Christian or Muslim FB page, for example.

In the midst of a debate though, wherever it happens to be, I don't find it remotely unacceptable to ridicule the clearly ridiculous and point out that things that make no sense are, by definition, nonsense.

I absolutely will say that creationism, ghosts & ghoulies, psychic healing and all that jazz are complete and total bollocks - and saying so lands me in hot water with the faint of heart quite often (or their defenders). Why my opinion matters to them so much to them that they decide to feel offended is beyond me, but it's entirely their choice.

I believe, more than anything else, in freedom of thought. If religion makes sense to you, fine. Not my business & I couldn't care less. Unless it impacts on others - OR you have decided to talk about it on a public forum & have invited others to comment.

We all have a right to hold opinions. We do no have the right to hold them unopposed.