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Original poster

insulting religions

989 replies

IneedAgoldenNickname · 07/01/2013 00:39

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. Grin

OP posts:
amillionyears · 14/01/2013 17:00

Well said MadHairDay
So glad you are feeling so much better, and that your spirit seems to be back!!

MadHairDay · 14/01/2013 17:05

Thanks, amiilionyears. It's taken a while! And thanks for your support in the thick of it. :)

Avuncular · 14/01/2013 17:12

Well fancy that Madhair I was just leaving but can I just say 'snap'.

My DW came down with pneumonia just like that at age 56; into ICU where she was given a 20% or less likelihood of survival.

Septicaemia, kidney failure, heart stopped 3 or 4 times. Under sedation for 1 week then 3 more weeks in ICU. Recovery over a 3 month period. An interesting time for all concerned. Probably more for the rest of us, because she didn't really know what was going on. She's written a booklet about her experiences.

amillionyears · 14/01/2013 17:13

I do think that modern day Christians are actually at more of a disadvantage that Christians in Jesus time and beyond.
They had those lovely things called miracles going on, lots and lots of them.
And this helped people believe, because they could see the evidence.

Avuncular · 14/01/2013 17:19

Miracles LoL Wink

MadHairDay · 14/01/2013 17:20

How is she now Avuncular? Sounds like it was an awful time.

I wasn't quite as bad as that but not far off, I do get it a lot though as have had lung disease all my life. This is the worst bout I have had in 12 years. I was very frightened.

DadOnIce · 14/01/2013 17:27

The odd miracle would be useful evidence. Again, not conclusive as it would need to be set against all the times there could have been one and was not. Of course, I am delighted for anyone who had a serious illness and got better. But there is no correlation between this and the brand of thing you believe in. It's simply confirmation bias, with a large dash of hope and need to believe.

amillionyears · 14/01/2013 17:28

How many miracles do you think you would need to convince you DadOnIce?

amillionyears · 14/01/2013 17:30

Actually, I have to say here, that nowadays, we have better medicine than I assume was the case 2000 years ago. So again, they had it easier, miracle wise, back then.

EllieArroway · 14/01/2013 18:35

Very, very glad you're OK now & on the mend Mad - and your DW, Avuncular.

A "miracle" is not just a happy, fortuitous event - it's an event for which no natural explanation can be found.

Penicillin is a natural explanation, I'm afraid. Before scientists discovered it, people died of pneumonia no matter how much praying they did.

MadHairDay · 14/01/2013 19:12

Thankyou Ellie :)

GrimmaTheNome · 14/01/2013 19:44

Oh, someone noticed my absence .... I usually do a strange thing called 'real life' at the weekend Grin. And today a stranger thing called getting on with work and not wandering off onto MN

Hey, Mad, sorry you've been so ill - glad you're on the mend.

So... I guess now we're onto the belief-evidence question. Some of us are (or become) Doubting Thomases. At the very end of my faith that's who I identified with - prayed his prayer - but no evidence forthcoming for me. Not even of the serendipitous bible verse or coincidence or helpful word from a friend type of thing.

The bible reports that Jesus supplied Thomas with the evidence he needed...but then said 'Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed'. Why? What's so good about having faith without proof? I'm afraid that in my dis-illusioned state I can only find that to be a huge, fantastically clever con-trick pulled by the founders of the religion.

Original poster
IneedAgoldenNickname · 14/01/2013 20:38

Mrskbpw ok I see your point re choice, but don't know how to word what I feel. I don't believe that I consciously chose to be a Christian, and I couldn't stop believing. Not sure that that's a better explanation though, sorry I'm not always good with words. Who knows what I'd be if I'd grown up somewhere where christianity doesn't exist, I guess we'll never know.

And yes, laughing in a non malicious way should of course happen, but that's not what was happening on Facebook.

If I'm honest, I can see why faith seems rediculous to someone who doesn't believe, but that still doesn't give them the right to fee as rude as these people were :)

OP posts:
Original poster
IneedAgoldenNickname · 14/01/2013 20:39

And mad I'm sorry to hear you have been so ill :)

OP posts:
DadOnIce · 14/01/2013 21:38

How many "miracles" would it take to convince me? It's not a question of there being a number. I'm not going to say "twelve" or "two hundred and seven". Show me one, define one, and we can at least start having a conversation. But I suspect the religious have a pretty broad definition of "miracle".

And you'd have to set it, as I keep saying, against the times when it didn't happen - and then, demonstrate that it was specifically the intervention of the Judeo-Christian God as defined in the Bible, rather than any other random mythical deity from the last X-thousand years.

You see, it's not a miracle if someone gets better from cancer after being prayed for - some people get better from cancer and others don't. And it's not a miracle when a little girl gets found alive in the rubble of an earthquake among all the dead bodies - it's still a tragedy, because all those other people died.

amillionyears · 14/01/2013 22:14

DadOnIce, your mum is a Christian. Some of your friends are Chrisitians.
Do you think you are trying to turn your back on it in some way?

GrimmaTheNome · 14/01/2013 22:28

DadOnIce, your mum is a Christian. Some of your friends are Chrisitians.
Do you think you are trying to turn your back on it in some way?

I don't know about DOI, but my family were all Christians, most of my friends at the time were Christians.... I didn't 'turn my back on it'. I simply found myself a point where I no longer believed there was a God. And if a God of the sort I had believed in had existed, how would he have let that happen and not answered prayers for faith?

amillionyears · 14/01/2013 22:35

Are you saying people prayed for you Grimma, for you not to lose your faith?
My take on why it can happen, is because, if we are old enough and mentally capable, then it is our choice. Everyone has a choice, their own free will.

GrimmaTheNome · 14/01/2013 22:43

I meant I prayed for myself not to lose faith.

amillionyears · 14/01/2013 22:55

Whoa Grimma.
I think we talked a bit about this before, about 3 months ago?
I thought you meant then, that you chose to throw you faith away.

It is a different thing, to sort of not currently believe. I think we can at times get to a sort of stalemate. And a stalemate may take years.
But there is a big difference between that, and rejecting it all.

I hope I am making myself clear.[I am a morning person].

I hope I am not being too personal here.

GrimmaTheNome · 14/01/2013 23:10

I didn't reject it all. I found myself at a point where there was nothing to reject. There was nothing to 'throw away'.

amillionyears · 14/01/2013 23:15

That is ok.
In fact I am so very relieved.
I thought about you lots.

Himalaya · 15/01/2013 08:53

Avuncular

Re "- purpose of rant was to address the question what is God doing about suffering; should Christians not be rushing out and sorting everything Pronto instead of messing about with piles of books? I just thought you'd like to know that my diary was already pretty full "

.... Just to clarify ....the question (I think) is why is god messing around doing spooky things with your piles of books, when he could be curing childhood cancer, not why aren't you curing cancer.

That is what mystifies me about how a coincidence with a book can be seen as evidence for an all knowing, all seeing, all good, interventionist god, but the meaningless suffering around us is not seen as evidence for a psychotic god, or more likely: no god.

amillionyears · 15/01/2013 09:35

Earth is not Heaven.
On earth people have choices.
People can reject God
People can shun God
People can worship something other than God
People do not want to talk to God.

And nowadays, people are not much told about God either.

And also there is the Devil.
He is not spoken about hardly at all nowadays.
Not even in churches.

Snorbs · 15/01/2013 10:39

Are you suggesting that those are the reasons God's not bothered doing anything about childhood cancer?

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