God-bothering at work

[WhereToSheNow]

New MD hired his buddy/neighbour 6 months ago for a few hours a week to act as a Management Consultant.

The Management Consultant, who we call "Pokey" (because he keeps jabbing us in the arm) has some sort of official capacity within the Baptist Church, and his website is all about the application of his faith within business.

I didn't have a problem with that, as he hadn't mentioned religion.... until last week.

He attended a "World Leadership Course" and emailed us his notes, with several quotes about God and Jesus, telling us to read them and "feel free to ask any questions". In a meeting the following day, he asked us what we thought of his email.

I told him that I don't want to be included in emails that reference any religion/god, at which point he became very defensive.

Later that day I received another email where he said that he was sorry if the contents of his previous email had offended me, but that he hoped I would gain some insight that would assist me in my professional or personal life.

AIBU to think that my work should a) be a secular space and b) my personal life is none of his business!

"Bertrand lots of Christians would testify to being helped by God. Ta- dah!!!!There you see, evidence. smile"

You missed "testably"

And who decides which interpretation is correct

Ultimately, God does, according to my beliefs, Apricot.

And who decides which interpretation is correct

Ultimately, God does, according to my beliefs, Apricot.

Bertrand ah, I didn't see that you had included this.

You cannot test for successful outcomes due to 'early intervention' since it is early and the true nature of the starting point has not been reliably established, neither can the intervention be (remotely) established as causing the outcome, since there is no control.

No - you can't say "We must all decide that for ourselves" - not when you've just finished explaining that you consider it your duty on behalf of God to spread the word.

I did not say anything about 'duty'. What I was saying, rather, is that our beliefs affect what we perceive, say and do. Following on from this, my Christian beliefs are part of me. Any action or other form of outward expression from me will be an evangelism of sorts, since I am Christian.

So, let me get this straight, Capsium.

The Bible is open to interpretation.

God decides who has happened upon the right interpretation...but he only lets on to those who have happened upon the right interpretation, leaving those who haven't entirely in the dark so they go on thinking theirs is correct?

How fortunate for you that YOUR interpretation is the right one! Yay!!!

Dearie, dearie me.......what twaddle.

Oh, and no, the English language is not that unstable. Consult a dictionary if you're not sure what words mean.

And personal experience, anecdote and ancient writings evidence themselves only....not the claims that spring from them.

Your "personal experience" of God/Jesus/whoever is evidence that you think you had a personal experience with God/Jesus/whoever. We need something else to indicate the actual existence or not of God/Jesus/whatever.

Apricot, Matthew 7:7 says "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:" (KJV), which I believe, so it is not a matter of just having 'happened upon the right interpretation".

According to your definition, a lot of things, which academics and professionals involve themselves in, only 'evidence themselves', so I am no clearer as to why you dismiss this in one context and not the other.

Bottom line - you've correctly interpreted the Bible (God told you that you had) and it now befalls to you to correct the "dysfunctional thinking" of those not clued in as hard as you possibly can, because you are a Christian.

Sincerely, Capsium - I think you are exhibiting extremely "dysfunctional thinking".

A committed Christian believer is diagnosed with Leukaemia.
They and their immediate and their extended family pray for recovery.
Their church and many other churches also pray.
The person is treated by the NHS but they place most of their faith in God.
But they die.

(a) God does not exist and its chance
(b) God is a bastard

PS it deeply shook the whole family's belief for a while.

I am pretty sure most Christians are familiar with that passage - even those with different interpretations. So what is your point?

No - academics, professionals, scientists do not base anything much on single untestable, unfalsifiable claims, I'm afraid. Except, perhaps, an evaluation of a person's mental health.

Jesus chatting to you is evidence FOR YOU that Jesus chatted to you. It does not work outside of you because there is precisely no way of testing whether it was a real event or something you just imagined.

Evidence must be repeatable, reliable and testable to be of any value. Surely you see that?

Apricot if I sincerely believed I encountered dysfunctional thinking, yes, I would counter it because it is the caring thing to do.

I would hope someone else would do the same for me.

Me being a Christian is relevant in terms of it being this that affects my world view, as your beliefs no doubt affect your own world view. Should this stop either of us being able to help or give advice? In case it was viewed as 'evangelism'?

No where have I said your thinking is dysfunctional because you are an atheist. I have considered and responded to each point as you made it on it's own merits. This could be considered evangelism because my responses are informed by my Christian beliefs. However I am not so arrogant to say that all your thinking is dysfunctional because you are atheist, so don't put words in my mouth.

for anyone to make assumptions of strangers' personal beliefs and say that they are not 'really Christians' is extremely rude. There are many Christians who I don't think exactly radiate the love of God, but I would never claim that they are not really Christians. That is between them and God alone.

I agree with this and the rest of your post hopefulanxiety.

I am not a follower of any faith

Oh, no....someone who is "not a follower of any faith" thinks I am rude. That's the big guns, right there.

Thank goodness I am not in Saudi Arabia, eh? It's 1000 lashes for being rude about religion there. A smug little remark from a morally superior being who "is not a follower of any faith" isn't quite as bad. Phew. I'm getting off lightly.

Lucky old me that I live in a country where people are quite free to "not follow any faith" or even, if they want, be RUDE about religious beliefs.

Unless of course they are only free to be rude about religious beliefs if they are not so rude as to actually exercise that right.

Hmmm. Head scratcher.

"You cannot test for successful outcomes due to 'early intervention' since it is early and the true nature of the starting point has not been reliably established, neither can the intervention be (remotely) established as causing the outcome, since there is no control."

I don't know, as I said, what "early intervention" is. But I assume that you can look at a cohort for whom it has been implemented and a cohort for whom it hasn't and draw conclusions?

for anyone to make assumptions of strangers' personal beliefs and say that they are not 'really Christians' is extremely rude. There are many Christians who I don't think exactly radiate the love of God, but I would never claim that they are not really Christians. That is between them and God alone.*

I agree with this and the rest of your post hopefulanxiety.*
**
I am not a follower of any faith

I agree with this and with limited. I do think you are rude Apricot and narrow minded belittling people who hold onto a faith less offensive than LoveandHate, however that is my belief and interpretation of your posts. There will be some who will agree with you and think your being honest, there will be some who think any number of various things about what you've written. But it doesn't mean you don't exist, it means whatever is said - belief is fickle, people don't seem to choose to believe or not believe, they just do. I didn't 'choose' to find you rude, however I do. Somebody else with different prior experiences and a different filter to myself will believe or interpret differently.

As a former Christian of 8+yrs, I opened my heart and soul to God/Jesus. I look back on my time as a Christian and not once did I receive any indication that there was a higher power. My gran was a Christian of 72+yrs and not once did the 'lord' answer any of her prayers (nor any of mine for that matter) . DG renounced her faith in god the day before she died as she realised that she was being sold a short straw.

She came to the conclusion that the Christian church wanted power over the people by preying on their fear of death and the possibility of nothing after it.

In the NT, the book of Paul tells Christians that it's fine to have slaves, and also gives instructions on how to treat them. Instructions such as being able to beat a slave to within an inch of their life, and if they don't die within a week (giving a very wide berth, but I think it's) then you won't be punished. A slave owner will only be punished if the beaten slave dies within specific time frame of days.

Can any Christian enlighten me as to whether the bible is the infallible and unchanging word of god?

Bertrand

I don't know, as I said, what "early intervention" is. But I assume that you can look at a cohort for whom it has been implemented and a cohort for whom it hasn't and draw conclusions?

This is the thing, you can't because early intervention is not one thing or one type of intervention, rather it is an approach. It involves intervening on the first suspicion of a difficultly before much investigative work is done on the nature or scale of that difficulty.

For example, if a child receives a low score for an assessment, early intervention might mean they automatically would undergo a generic teaching programme to tackle an assumed difficulty in the subject area being assessed, rather than further investigation, which might find the low score was due to something else, such as concentration levels. Whether the intervention is successful, in this case, depends on whether the intervention tackles the actual difficulty rather than it being 'early'.

Being overly early on intervention might mean a child is subjected to lots of innapropriate interventions, the success criteria of which are difficult to measure since there is no way to determine if a different course of action would have had greater success.

And I think you are rude, Hairbrush. Rude, dangerous and thoughtless.

I mean this sincerely...how dare you be so fucking hypocritical?

Do you respect all religious beliefs? All faiths?

Are you respectful of the faith that seeks to ban gay marriage? Insists that women dress in tents and exist as the property of a man? Forces raped children to give birth? Crucifies atheists and apostates?

The moment....the very moment....that you and LimitedPeriod stand up in public and say that you RESPECT the faith that teaches the above and that people like me are RUDE for being critical, then you will have the moral authority to accuse me of being RUDE about someone else's "personal beliefs".

Or (as is quite likely) are you going to reserve the right to decide WHICH personal beliefs are worthy of respect or not? HOW RUDE!

And what "personal beliefs" exactly? What is so personal about Christianity? Who on this thread invented it, owns it or has the right to direct conversation concerning it? It's been around for 2000 years and I'm not allowed to say anything about it because it's "personal" to the people who have bought into it?

It's bullshit. Trite, infantile, patently untrue bullshit. How far have we fallen into the pit of slimy respect that no one is allowed to point out the bleeding obvious because some people might get their little feelings hurt by MY OPINION.

How utterly and oustandingly ridiculous. And how RUDE of you to belittle me by attempting to ban my opinion in favour of someone else's. Is my opinion worth less? Am I?

And "narrow minded"? Yes, you're right. How narrow minded of me not to believe in dead men walking because it says so in a spooky old book. Maybe if I open my mind I might find myself believing in a "higher consciousness" for absolutely no good reason other than that I want to.

What are you on about Apricot?

Apricot it is possible to hate a person's beliefs and actions but still treat them with respect.

The respect simply denotes letting them define their own beliefs and experiences without telling them they are not genuine concerning what they believe and have experienced. How can anyone say they know what goes on in another's head?

Swearing, capitalised 'shouty' posts tend to be used in order to silence another poster, IMO, since swearing and shouting in real life often is meant to deliberately offend.

Yes, you can be rude, shouty and sweary. You might think the subject matter demands an enpassioned response. However you seem to want to argue the people who are not offensive are somehow not the real deal, which saddens me.

Do you respect all religious beliefs? All faiths?

Yes. I respect people's right to believe whatever they believe. I draw the line at respecting people who are imposing of their beliefs on others who do not share their values and force the practice of 'their belief or interpretation of a faith' onto others who either do not share the belief or are not of a mental capacity, or emotional maturity (such as a child) to be able to share it.

It's bullshit. Trite, infantile, patently untrue bullshit. How far have we fallen into the pit of slimy respect that no one is allowed to point out the bleeding obvious because some people might get their little feelings hurt by MY OPINION.

I don't think it is ALL bullshit. That's YOUR opinion. I find it very interesting to read in places, other parts I think are outdated, absurd or offensive. Saying you think something is bullshit is rather less arrogant than demanding everyone find it bullshit because you think it is.

I don't think your narrow minded for not believing in a dead man walking (neither do I) I think your narrow minded for assuming faith can offer no benefit to anyone.

I am genuinely angry at the stunning hypocrisy of your post, Capsium. This from someone who has the absolute bloody nerve to talk about "dysfunctional thinking" in people who don't share your views? That's how "respect" works for you, is it?

You appear to have NO respect for any other view point but your own. So much so that you feel duty bound to do "everything you can to correct their thinking". And you justify this with some little flim flam about it being "kindness". It's just what you do because of your Christian worldview. Bollocks. It's evangelising self-interest that motivates you.

Know where my "evangelising atheism" takes me? Nowhere except a few internet forums.

My atheism is nowhere if/when I give advice, unless it's very specifically needed. I knock on no doors, I hand out no leaflets, I stand on no street corners. I discuss my views and share my opinion in places where people can entirely avoid it if they want to. I send no PMs, follow no one around, engage only with people who either address me or respond to my posts.

I have made no attempt to silence you....ever. And I have talked to you several times. I respond to what you say with what I think. You have no right to accuse me of being rude and aggressive because I'm not saying what you want to hear....not serving your beliefs the helping of respect you've decided they should have.

If anybody....believer, atheist whatever....on this thread, or reading it reserves for themselves the right voice an opinion on someone elses belief...whether political, religious, whatever .... then they are nothing but hypocrites when they take exception to me doing exactly the same thing.

I can't help it if people wrap themselves up in a belief so tightly that it feels like a personal attack if it's criticised. The only answer to this is to stop being so fucking precious about an ideology that existed thousands of years before you were even born. You don't bloody well own the idea, it's not yours to protect. The answer is most assuredly NOT to tell me to shut up. It doesn't work like that...and neither must it.

And this is laying aside the clear fact that I have personally insulted no one and have engaged in no personal attacks at all. I have said what I think about a bunch of religious ideas. That's all.

Fuck me. Grow up.

*And this is laying aside the clear fact that I have personally insulted no one and have engaged in no personal attacks at all. I have said what I think about a bunch of religious ideas. That's all.

Fuck me. Grow up.*

Sorry, I thought I was rude, dangerous, thoughtless and hypocritical?

I said I believed you were rude and narrow minded. Granted. But then I'm not claiming I haven't done so.

Appreciating your efforts, Apricot.

It is not hypocritical to talk about actions being born out of belief, Apricot, to my mind it is rather the opposite.

This is all any of us can do, ultimately, regardless of the specific belief.

I didn't say people who don't share my beliefs gave dysfunctional thinking, I said dysfunctional thinking is thinking which is harmful. How I view what is harmful, though, is informed by my beliefs and perceptions but this is the same for anyone. The only difference between me and an atheist is that my perceptions are informed by my Christian beliefs, rather than something else.