insulting religions

[IneedAgoldenNickname]

Hi, I've never posted on this topic before, I tend to hang out in aibu, but don't want to start a bun fight!

So, I am a liberal Christian. I firmly believe that everyone had to right to believe (or not) whatever they want, provided that belief doesn't hurt anyone else.

Earlier today I posted a lighthearted status on Facebook, which had led to me being called mindless, stupid, stuck up, thinking I'm better than everyone else. I've been told God is a c**t (sorry I hate that word so much I won't type it) and that the Bible is only God for loo roll!

I'm just really angry that people think its ok to insult me/my religion like that, when I haven't once preached or insulted others.

Obviously the easy solution would be to delete them off of Facebook, but they are people I get on with other wise.

Don't really know the point of my post, just hoping id feel better writing it down.

I dont know really. I think I sort of thought that God is one end of the scale, and ghosts are the other. So people not believing in one, were more likely to believe in the other iyswim.

My ex doesn't believe in God, (although he always ticks the 'Christian' box on a form because he was christened ) but is adamant that vampires, ghosts and werewolves exist.

Now I thought they were on the same side of the scale. No real proof for the existence of either.

What scale is that, amillionyears?

Ellie
"There is nothing I believe in that is not detectable"
Does it have to be detectable by you though?
If you have a garden with bulbs in, do you not believe that near springtime, something is happening to them. You do not have to dig them up, because you know that something is happening below ground?
Not sure how much sense I am making. Off to bed for me.

I'd say the same. Same end of the scale.

The only difference is that with God, much more people tell you that it's real.

Apropos ghosts, special friends etc.

Here's a funny thing which happened just today.

We have 40 boxes of books. Moved to our 'retirement' bungalow 2 years ago and things are just getting straight. Downsizing in a big way from 6 bedrooms to 2. Most books on shelves but could only put my hand directly on a few at present. Sympathy, anyone?

Anyway, earlier today it occurred to me that two of the books, the 21 scientists who believe that I posted earlier, and another (can't remember the title) might be of help/interest to the main players, or to 'lurkers'.

DW finally decides how she would like her study to be arranged prior to starting next edition of Parish Magazine. Everything has to be moved. Bookcase unstacked on to floor. New work table to be moved in. Can't because some books are in the way. So we start to move them.

And on the top of the first pile there is that very 'long lost' book. DW hadn't even known I was looking for it.

Not: I saw the book 'by chance' and then thought this is a Sign better post the info - but thought about the book this morning; don't recall specifically praying but certainly concerned to do the right thing about the post; then the book turns up.

If this sort of thing happens once, then yes of course it's 'coincidence'.

But if it keeps happening, what am I to think? It's clearly a real event observed by me (nobody else knew my thoughts), it's not 'psychosomatic' or a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it doesn't prove the existence of God, poltergeists or anything else.

However when I have in my hand a book which says that God will reveal himself to me in various ways, and he then apparently does, is not this important corroborative evidence to me that (in this case) the Bible 'does what it says on the tin' and therefore is a credible source of information about the world I live in?

Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else, and if so what do you make of it?

PS found this FYI religious backgrounds of influential world scientists

Ellie do you think there might be things that exist but that we don't have the means to detect them yet?

Oh yes - absolutely.

But if you're talking about ghosts and stuff, then don't forget that people claim to see them so if they exist then they are detectable. If people can detect them then so should science. And science has tried very, very hard to do so and can't. At all.

That maybe, the same reason they didnt believe in God was the same reason they didnt believe in ghosts
it sort of wasnt personal about God
Or have I still got that all wrong?

You are absolutely, 100%, completely totally right :)

I've never really understood by people get so offended by the opinions of others. Your beliefs and religion aren't who you are, they are just a tiny part of you. It should be water off a duck's back. If someone started criticising me for being an atheist nothing they could say would offend me. I always love to have a discussion about it, it's always good to have a different point of view and your beliefs should always be open for interrogation.

Ellie
"There is nothing I believe in that is not detectable"
Does it have to be detectable by you though?

No. Science does most of my detecting for me.

Avuncular Anthony Hopkins was once asked to be in a film that was based on a fairly obscure book (can't recall what). The book was out of print so he wrote to the author for a copy. The author said that he'd lost his only copy years ago. AH was on the tube a few days later and someone got off leaving a book behind. You've guessed what book it was, right? But not only that, it had writing on the flyleaf that proved it was the copy that the author had lost years ago.

Even odder - and this one made the news, it was so strange:

An AA man was on a call - his van was parked near a phone box that started to ring. He answered it and it was a girl from his office who started asking him something about his tax or hours (can't recall exactly). He asked her how she'd known the number of the call box and how he'd be there and she sounded confused and said, "But I called your home number, didn't I?" Then she went very quiet for a while and then said, in an apparently very shaky voice, "Fred? It wasn't a telephone number I called at all - it was your employee reference number".

Much less dramatically, my best friend at school and the best friend I later made at college turned out to know each other as they'd lived in the same apartment block in Honk Kong 10 years earlier.

Coincidences happen - some are big, some are small. The only real mystery is why you think the creator of the universe is communicating with you by putting books you've thought about on the top of a pile? I'm sorry and, yes, I know this is going to make you cross - why is he wasting time on stupid stuff like that when he could be ridding the world of child cancer?

Honk Kong?? Erm...Hong Hong.

happybubble I don't have a problem with people questioning my faith our why I have it, I get offended by being called thick, deluded, and whatever it wad that they said. I get offended by someone/thing that I believe in being called frankly disgusting names.
I'm glad I you wouldn't be offended by any of these things, I'm obviously too sensitive

Tsk.

HONG BLOODY KONG.

Amillion: do you believe that 'everyone believes in something'? Because that's not true in the least when it comes down to woo-bollocks and stuff for which there is no evidence at all ie gods, ghosts, homeopathy, pixies, astrology. Some gullible or dim people might believe in one or more of these things but plenty of people are aware that they are all just imaginary guff.

Lol Ellie I'd like to visit Hong Konk, or Honk Kong, or Honk Konk

Avuncular: It's simply coincidence. There's no evidence for it being anything else. People remember coincidences that have some sort of significance and forget all the times that nothing special happens.

I know. They sound like fun places, don't they? Now I've got the song from Hong Kong Phooey in my head! Bed I think.

Sorry, I misunderstood then - the thread is entitled 'insulting religions'. It was the name-calling that bothered you then, not the fact that someone insulted your religion? People usually throw insults around when they're not happy with themselves, try to look at it as their problem. They're probably not happy and want to lash out. It's best just to have sympathy for them. It is hard to not take things personally sometimes though, I agree. But I don't think religon is a deeply personal thing, it's just what you think, you might be wrong or you might be right about it, until proven it's up for debate.

Both bothered me, the name calling and insulting my religion. Especially as the Facebook status they were commenting on didn't have anything to do with religion!

The title of the thread isn't very good tbh, I couldn't think what to call it.

Had they wanted to debate religion, that would be fine but they didn't, they were just being rude. A misguided attempt at humour I think from some immature people. :)

Avuncular - a few posts back but you refer to the number of Christian scientists over recent centuries. It got me thinking why god couldn't have used the bible to impart some basic science, maybe he could have explained bacteria and so on. It calls to mind Carl Sagan's observations of people who came to him claiming to be in touch with advanced intelligent aliens. When Sagan asked questions of a philosophical nature he would get plenty of feedback from the 'alien' but his mathematical conundrums would go unanswered.

I think there is confusion here between "see", "prove" and "find evidence for". I haven't ever seen an alpha particle, but I am prepared to accept the evidence of those who have demonstrated that they exist, because it is convincing. Same goes for gravity - you can't see it, but you can see the effect. It's "only a theory", to use that horrible creationist expression, but it is one which fits all the facts.

There are things in the world which have not been 100% provenbut which have an enormous body of evidence to back them up. Man-made climate change is one such notion - scientists don't all agree, but the weight of evidence is in favour. Similarly, while you can't prove a negative, there are other things where the weight of evidence is in favour of the negative, e.g. the Loch Ness Monster. Yes, there are a few blurry photos and bits of jerky film and anecdotal testimonies, but when weighed against the extensive 500-sonar-probe search of the Loch which found nothing, it's sensible to assume that Nessie is just an enjoyable bit of folklore. That's no reason to stop people believing in her and using the story to draw people to a beautiful part of Scotland - she many not exist, but she is part of our heritage. It ultimately doesn't do any harm.

We weigh up evidence and use our brains. It's what we as humans are capable of.

There's a very interesting book on coincidences by John Allen Paulos. Makes it clear that they do happen - they may seem unlikely, but they still happen and are only coincidences. The example everyone knows best, I think, is that of a class where two children have the same birthday. It seems unbelievable until you stop and work it out and realise the odds are quite high. It's explained here.

Dark matter is also a good example of things we can't see but are, in some respect, detectable.

Dark matter is, of course, hypothetical and completely undetectable in any physical sense of the word. But something has to account for the fact that 85% of the universe appears to be missing.

So, "dark matter" whatever it turns out to be is not something that can be seen, heard, touched, weighed, measured or contained but it is "detectable" inferentially from it's gravitational effects.

Science has allowed us to "see" with more than just our eyeballs.

"If this sort of thing happens once, then yes of course it's 'coincidence'.
But if it keeps happening, what am I to think?"

You are supposed to remember something called selective perception, which is also why we are oh so impressed by the one dream that seems to predict what happens the next day, because we don't take into account the millions of other dreams we have had that bore no resemblance to real life events.

You must have looked for many things in your life, which didn't just show up as the topmost item on a box or drawer you opened. You remember the several times this did happen because it is so unusual, and now want to accord a supernatural worth to those because you don't see it in the context of the millions of other things you have looked for that didn't turn up by themselves.

Avuncular - re "religious backgrounds of influential world scientists"

I don't know why people keep making these lists, especially if they are so clueless as to think Einstein was "Jewish" and Neils Bohr was "Jewish Lutheran", and those are No 2 and No 3 of the list.

Neils Bohr had a religious background but then turned atheist and was quite vocal about it.

Einstein has never come out and said that he is an agnostic, but if you read a bit of what he says, he has at best a "cosmic religious feeling" and only entertains the possibility (not certainty) of a Watchmaker God (who has only set things in motion).

In fact, a a letter written by Einstein leaves no doubt about his thoughts on religion:

" The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel's second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God's favoured people.

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."