Hypocrite?

Elegran Your post expressed my feelings beautifully.

Just in case anyone misunderstood, the reason why I called this thread Hypocrite? is because I wondered if giving money to a charity of which I actually disapprove because of my affection for a family member who asked me to makes me a hypocrite.

I see. However, I don't feel animosity towards religion either, only to the damage some of it does. Except animosity is the wrong word. I think a better one would be concern. I don't feel concern about people believing things I don't believe, so long as those beliefs do no harm to anyone else. But some beliefs seem to me to be inherently prejudicial and therefore harmful.

Lilygran, can you, or anyone, please tell me why invalids make the journey to Lourdes? What can they find there that they cannot find in their own church? Or even in their own homes?

Lilygran I think it is cruel to delude suffering people into believing that their suffering might be relieved if they travel to a grotto in France where a teenage peasant thought she was spoken to by the Virgin Mother (daughter also of a virgin – St Anne) of one of three manifestations of a divine being in the nineteenth century. A man in a frock declares the waters capable of healing and a huge industry grows up as a result.

I have no doubt that the individuals who accompany the sick and disabled from the church that my party host supports and attends are kind, well-meaning, compassionate people. I also have no doubt that they appreciate a supplement to their private funds for the cost of travel, accommodation, etc. just feel very uneasy about it.

No one goes to Lourdes without at least hoping for a cure even if they don't expect one.

Lily - I repeat - my only animosity is towards religions that harm people, or try to impose their beliefs on me. Other than that, I simply think they are wrong. Either there is a supreme intelligence, or there isn't. I think there isn't, on the balance of probabilities. You think there is. Debate is interesting, but neither of us is going to convince the other, so apart from being an intellectual exercise, which I enjoy, it is pointless. Don't you agree?
I would love you to answer some of my specific questions - such as why you think billions of adherents of other religions are wrong.

Not animosity towards other members! Animosity towards religion. Greatnan I think the examples I've given of some attitudes expressed in this thread fully support that. Bags I didn't suggest you felt animosity towards people who don't believe in evolution. I suggested you probably felt you had to 'argue against their (mistaken) beliefs'.

I am not an atheist. There may be some guiding hand which created and rules the universe, or it may be made of pure energy which coalesced into patterns of particles, which formed atoms, which combined to form elements, which over eons of time recombined and altered to form the millions of life forms that exist and have existed. I will not know for sure until I die and either meet my creator or return to my component parts to be used to form a new entity.

If I were sure that God, the Devil, Heaven and Hell were not created by man in his own image (good, bad, happiness, misery) then the God I would choose would be the one described by the carpenter of Nazareth - a wise, loving, forgiving, supportive father.

Not the God of the Old Testament - angry, jealous, vindictive, demanding attention and worship, sacrifice of possessions happiness and ambitions to his glory.

Not the God of the global church institutions, led by fallible humans who claim infallibility and impose arbitrary rules which ignore the basic needs of other humans and their earthly health and well-being while emphasising how rapturous they will be hereafter.

Not any religion which demands complete unquestioning obedience, and punishes even those who are not part of it for imagined slights.

Not those whose leaders expect their followers to hand over all their worldly wealth to keep the few in luxury in this life, in return for a promise to be spared the everlasting pains in the next.

Meanwhile I try to live reasonably well and not decry whatever others believe. Belief cannot be achieved by force of argument or by concentrating the will, though it may be nurtured by example. It is a product of internal forces within the personality of the believer.

And no (before anyone suggests it), that's not being arrogant. There is masses and masses and masses of evidence to show that evolution is true. Why people want to deny this is something I don't understand except that it always seems to have something to do with a very limited understanding of the world (and religion).

By the way, I don't feel animosity towards people who don't believe that evolution is true. I just think they are misinformed (indoctrinated) or remaining wilfully ignorant because they prefer to believe something else. In short, I know they are wrong so I argue against their beliefs because I would not have them misinform (indoctrinate) others because that is damaging to education andnto understanding.

Lily, this sentence of yours "Atheism, being an absence, certainly does not improve understanding based on the evidence here" doesn't make any sense to me. What do you mean? What atheists believe depends on real life evidence in the world we live in. Atheists ask the same questions as theists do and they believe what evidence shows to be true, at least insofar as our limited brains can understand that evidence. How can this approach to "life and everything" not improve understanding? Presumably you do accept that scientific research has improved human understanding over the ages, and continues to do so? If you do accept that, what are you saying?

What evidence, Lily? Nobody has shown any animosity towards any other member. You don't seem to address specific issues.

As this thread has wound on its way, several posters have shown a fundamental misunderstanding about faith. It has been suggested, for example, that including the gift of a Bible in a box of other gifts (Christmas gifts!) was an inappropriate attempt to convert the recipient. It has also been suggested that the invalids who need assistance to get to Lourdes go because they are being misled into believing they will be cured. A further suggestion was that a Christian would be upset or offended at receiving as a gift, the sacred text of some other religion. All this argues such a depth of both ignorance and animosity that I feel I cannot let it pass. It's probably similar to the feeling Bags has when she reads about someone who denies evolution. Atheism, being an absence, certainly does not improve understanding based on the evidence here.

I think I am on the point of giving up stating my point of view on religion, as nothing I , or other atheists say, seems to be getting through.
I don't care what others believe - if your religion gives you some comfort, good for you. I just don't want your beliefs imposed on me by law. I want to stop religions doing things that harm others. That is all. I do enjoy debate about serious subjects but I never 'attack' individuals, just organisations when I think they are doing something harmful.
Atheists have been called 'arrogant' and 'aggressive', simply for stating our views. I think it is arrogant to assume that your religion, out of all the hundreds that exist, is the one true one, and the billions of people who embrace others, or none, are all wrong.

It can be quite brave to give up religious belief and accept that life on earth just happened and there is no purpose to it, other than that which we give it ourselves. Most of us began as Christians, because we were given no option, then started to question the things we were told and did not receive any credible answers. For my part, I went on studying and discussing religion for many years after I had lost any emotional attachment to it. The more questions I asked, the less answers I got.

I can't prove that the Abrahamic god does not exist because it is a scientific impossibility. All we can say is that we see no evidence for it - I refer you to Russell's example of the celestial teapot. Christians, similarly, cannot prove that the hundreds of other gods in which billions believe do not exist - I just believe in one god less than them.

I am happy to leave religions alone unless they are doing harm - I just want them to leave me alone, which means complete separation of church and state.

You've lost me there, elf. Don't understand your last post. Why is who you were referring to relevant? Surely I can say whatever I've got to say whether I'm being referred to or not? Isn't it the subject that's being referred to rather than people?

Besides, when you refer to atheists, you are referring to me because I am one.

Explain, please.

Why wouldn't it? Not having faith is just another way of looking at the world and interpreting things in the light of evidence and human reasoning. As I understand it, people with faith often have what might be called a spiritual conviction about what they believe. The only difference with atheism, is that an atheist is only convinced by evidence. Lack of evidence for an atheist means that the question, whatever it is, is still open.

I wasn't referring to gransnetters, I was referring to any atheists in the same way that the OP clearly referred to people who are not gransnetters.

Yes.

Like many of the Christians I know, I'm very happy to talk about religion with members of any faiths. I have attended lectures by members of other faiths and I read widely on a number of religions. This kind of formal and informal inter-faith dialogue is intended to, and does, increase understanding and improves relationships. Does atheism?

I didn't, elf. I just gave 'my' reply to your post. I understand that you could be referring to any or all gransnetters. I'm one of them. We can only give our own take on a subject. I hoped, with my reply, to add something useful to the discussion about understanding why some people feel the need to spread the word about their faith. I don't feel that need but I do enjoy philosophical discussions about beliefs, and what makes people 'tick', with all sorts of people, and I do, of course, feel the need to argue against discrimination where I think it occurs.

Gransnet is a discussion forum. Anyone can reply to any post without that meaning anything other that they "had something to say".

Besides, your comment that I replied to seemed to be related to one I'd posted not long previously .

Bags, when I said 'some people' above, why did you assume I was referring to you?!

To answer the original post, I would probably have just given to another charity.

Elf, I only mention my atheism when a religious argument for something is put up (e.g. here on gransnet) or when I feel discriminated against (e.g. by the Scout Association). I'd never put an atheist 'bible' (not that there is one anyway) into a gift for a child.

I have tried in the past to believe in a 'higher power' or a god or something to help in times of trouble. It is simply impossible. I've attended churches of different faiths, read about religion, talked to religious people, tried to pray - nothing worked. I eventually came to the understanding that I could no more believe in god than I could the tooth fairy. I'm happy and at peace with my non- belief and never try to convince anyone that their beliefs are wrong - they are just not my beliefs.

It must be for the same reason that some people tell others that they are atheists and explain the reasons why.