Its perfectly acceptable to be rude to religous people...

[startrek90]

Definately going to get flamed here but oh well.

I get the feeling that this is perfectly acceptable to be rude about religous people. From reading the threads on this forum, and my experiences in RL, the amount of rudeness and sometimes plain nastiness is awful.

I am religous. I don't care if people are not, if they go to church or how they live their own lives or raise their children. As far as I am concerned as long as you obey the law, do what you want.

So far I have seen people imply that all religous people are closing their childrens mind, are ignorant, bigots.... its horrible!

I don't deny that there are people who are that way and use religion as an excuse.... but quite frankly you can be ignorant and rude without religion.

I am being unreasonable to be offended, but it really bothers me that its culturally acceptable to be rude to and about people of faith. You wouldn't do it to someone from a different culture or race would you? I have never bothered anyone with my faith so please stop taking it as an insult!

(Just venting, been lambasted in RL for daring to buy my son a Noahs ark toy. I thought it was cute with all the animals etc... but apparently I am raising him to be ignorant, bigoted and stupid. He will hate gay people and women and generally be a horrible person.....apparently grrr )

You don't. But the person I suggested must have a personal interest in the matter did. She specifically said that when she saw "religion" she read "Christianity". I assumed you were responding to my post on that.

No, I didn't. My point was that people on the thread are saying they have an issue with religion but the only examples of issues they have are with Christianity. There are very few, if any examples of their issues with other religions.

Koala-that is because there are very few representatives of other religions on Mumsnet. Although have in the past been involved in pretty heated threads about Islam.

Also, because most people in Britain com from a broadly Christian background, they can speak from a reasonably knowledgable position

Also, Christianity is the only religion that has any impact of my day to day life- my view is live and lt live. So long as the way you live doesn't curtail the way I want to live.

I will give it one more go.
To get it into context it was all in reply to SleepOhHowIMissYou who said that death terrified her and 'lucky old you' to me. She seemed to think there was comfort in religion.
Death terrifies me in that I have too much that I still want to do and the type of death might terrify me. My worst fear, dying before my children are independent, has now gone.
I can't see why death itself should worry you. If it is nothing it will be like my operation with general anesthetic-one moment I was talking to a very nice anesthetist and the next nothing-just nothing-until I came to and had completely missed part of my life.If I hadn't come to I wouldn't have known.

Of course you don't need religion to take responsibility for your life.

I personally would prefer that. However I am not convinced by that.
I once had an out of body experience. I was not on drugs or medication, I was not unwell. I was waiting for a train when suddenly I was hovering about 6 feet up on the opposite side of the lines. That was it-I just came back and got on the train. My friend asked it I was OK as I looked pale-I just said 'yes, fine'.
I have also seen several dead bodies of people I loved. They were shells-the person wasn't there.
The funeral I have just been to was of an elderly man, he couldn't walk and he had dementia. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't get his brain to make the right connections-the real person was still in there.

(I expect there are scientific explanations for all this-there are with near death experiences but I don't think science can explain all)

I don't believe in the life after death like a cosy club where if you belong to the 'right' one you get a place-with some old man with a beard weighing up your past and passing judgement and then you trip around the clouds being 'reunited' with those who have already died.
If there is something after death I think that it is way outside any human imagination, which is very limited. It will be the same for all, whether they are a part of an organised religion, have a faith without organised religion or are atheists.
I only said that I thought that it would be easier to have nothing as finding out there is something is a huge step into the unknown-not something I am keen on!

To get back to the original person SleepOhHowIMissYou who said that only her mother and her wept at a funeral because the rest were convinced they would be reunited and found comfort-I can't see how it would give my DH and children comfort to know that I would be reunited with my first DH! There must be lots of people with complications! I can't think it is anything like spiritualists picking up messages of the departed which always seem very trivial concerns as if we are all just carrying on as we were somewhere else-keeping tabs on those still alive!

It is one thing that we don't know-some people have faith, some don't. We will either find out or it won't matter because there is nothing to find out.

I give up if people still think I am being rude about atheists. I am not.

There was a thread here the other day about someone asking if a friend's children were being selfish by not attending mother's day church service with her. There were a few posts on that thread where people mentioned they wouldn't make their kids go to church etc

I was one who wouldn't make them-utterly pointless. They are free to make up their own minds.

My point was that people on the thread are saying they have an issue with religion but the only examples of issues they have are with Christianity.

plenty of people have criticized islam on other threads.

the specific criticisms of christianity on this thread were in response to christians claiming certain things. it would hardly make sense to rant about hinduism in response.

"There have been many posts explicitly complaining about elements of Christian faith"
Yes, but only because the Christian element has been raised by theists in the first place..."

I didn't find it rude BigDorrit. I said it was childish - meaning that it is childish to think it's fine to be rude or to forthrightly blast your opinions around if someone brings up even what seems to you like a whiff of something you look down your nose at or feel zealous enough about.

Tearing apart Christianity detail by detail is not warranted by a poster complaining that she, a Christian, experienced criticism for buying a toy for her child based on an OT incident. She didn't bring up 'the Christian element'. She brought up the questions of rudeness and entitlement.

lambasted in RL for daring to buy my son a Noahs ark toy. I thought it was cute with all the animals etc... but apparently I am raising him to be ignorant, bigoted and stupid. He will hate gay people and women and generally be a horrible person

Actually I did raise a particular issue I have with Hinduism earlier, the notion that disability is divine retribution really sticks in my craw, just to be fair Buddhist and Druids also believe this too (amongst others). I think another poster was calling for the outlawing of religious based circumcision earlier too (which I could get behind). Although, largely the religions "of the book" are getting a good drubbing rather than Eastern thinking.

To avoid further confusion I should add that I'm agnostic, not atheist.....my rationality tells me there's got to be 'something' but not unfortunately what it is.

By the way, when discussing the fear of death, I didn't mention that this fear is not necessarily for myself. I did quote Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, but perhaps I was being too obscure to get my meaning across.

This is all man made though Sleep - only man would come up with the disability idea.
I got your Dylan Thomas- but it really doesn't apply when the person is in real old age.

I am sure I am not the only one who would love to hear various opinions on Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Seventh Day Adventism, Mormonism, Sufis, Shias, Shi'ites, Rastafarianism, Shinto, modern paganism, Anabaptists, Calvinists, Pentacostalists, Quakers, Baptists, the Church of God in Christ, etc.. The last six, being Christian, are oppressing some people on this thread.

the specific criticisms of christianity on this thread were in response to christians claiming certain things. it would hardly make sense to rant about hinduism in response.
Ranting about Christianity makes sense though? Even though what is biting some of the ranters is actually a political circumstance that would be changed far faster if secularists weren't so offensive to believers, many of whom are secularists themselves, and individual Christians to whom much rudeness is directed are probably no more annoying than double glazing salesmen or people collecting for the heart foundation, or hang up calls, or whatever..

Admit it, 'the specific criticisms of Christianity on this thread' are the stock in trade of certain posters who always show up to bash Christianity.

Well of course it's all man made! Who do we think wrote the OT? It didn't fall from the sky did it?

And the Sanskrit texts, all man made.

We are humans. We think. The issue is distinguishing reason from sentience. I do not doubt that those that hold a faith believe in it any less than I do in my own conviction that there is more to know than us humans have the capability to understand.

I would not disrespect anyone for their beliefs. As I've said before though, I am a staunch feminist and equalist, and it's my right to question the aspects of religion that contradict my own convictions in these areas.

math - oh, doorstep evangelists are usually much less annoying than the miscreants you mention. For one thing IMO they have more sense than to bother people just when they're serving dinner.

I said all that earlier about OT when people persist in taking it literally or expecting the 10 commandments to reflect 21st century thinking. Human thinking is very limiting.

I think another poster was calling for the outlawing of religious based circumcision earlier too (which I could get behind).

That was me. Interesting that no one picked up on that point. Clearly no one wants to discuss that.

Koala - sometimes interesting points just get missed in this sort of thread. I'm not sure I'd ban religious circumcision of males but limit it to those old enough to give proper informed consent and performed by someone properly medically qualified under proper medical conditions.

BD - anyone who is convinced of health benefits would surely be happy to have this available only on strictly medical grounds not religious?

BigDorrit my question was whether anyone thought it would be banned in the future? I think it's interesting that there isn't any other situation (that I can think of) where it is legal to mutilate a baby. I assume it's only allowed because its a religious practice, which to me is rather odd.

Clearly no one else thinks it's intetesting though!

Religious circumcision confuses me. I can see the point in a hot country with the limited sanitation that was available in the long distant past, but not nowadays. Also, if God wanted us to cut it off, why did he put it there in the first place? Anyone?

Sorry, x-post with you there Errol

I am totally lost as to which point we are on! Sorry to ignore-it isn't steadfast-- just didn't realise I had missed one.