The Oatmeal's Guide to Religion

Oatmeal

This should probably go into humor as it is satirical, but I think it raises some valid points. For instance, I can't help but be creeped out whenever people try to proselytize to me because of how fundamentalist my own parents were. I think the fastest way to ruining your children's spiritual life in the future is to shove your own religion down their throat. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink applies specifically to the font of light, and that is assuming that your religion is leading you to paradise in the first place and not some illusory oasis in the middle of a vast desert wasteland.

I spent today living in the darkness amidst the dead and the damned, and I can say for sure that being cut off from the source of illumination is no way to live. They say you will face tribulation periods in this life, but I never knew what they meant until now.

a reply to: Nechash

The Oatmeal is generally one of the best things ever to come into existence. It's funny you say "shove your own religion down their throat," because that's exactly what I told my mom she was doing, a long time ago, and why I was rejecting it. She, after much soul-searching, responded that it was MY fault for not accepting it.

I always enjoy the satire from Oatmeals comics, made my day once again.

I spent today living in the darkness amidst the dead and the damned, and I can say for sure that being cut off from the source of illumination is no way to live. They say you will face tribulation periods in this life, but I never knew what they meant until now.

Dude, is this how you felt after reading the Oatmeal?

That's kinda dark, the comic's not that bad

A person running around outside saying "Jesus is Lord! He died for your sins so you can get to heaven for free!" is freedom of speech, but if they grab you and force you to go to a church or force you to follow their religious code (whether through threats, or trying to put it in State Law, etc.) then they are trying to force their religion by denying your freedom of religion to not be a part of them.

But if someone is telling you about their religion and you tell them you don't want to be bothered but they keep following you and talking to you about their religion, then that's harassment.

I think it's important to make these distinctions because saying "keep your religion to yourself" can be used to deny others freedom of speech.

a reply to: arpgme

Well, proselytizing shouldn't be illegal, but that doesn't mean it is polite, effective or appropriate in most situations. There is a difference between law and society, crime and morals, and these should be strictly divided. I think the reason maybe Christians especially are worried when people speak out against proselytizing is because they have a habit themselves of trying to use the law to proscribe moral issues and therefore they are afraid the same might be done to them.

If we had a mutual respect for one another, moral issues would never make it into legislative arenas and things like who you want to marry, a woman's medical concerns, what drugs you want to put into your body, who you want to worship, how you want to raise your children, and what you want to say/do peacefully in public would never become legal issues in the first place.

Here is the real secret to this life. If your ideas are superior and your morals are virtuous, then they will be able to defend themselves in the marketplace of ideas. They won't need the law to stand behind them. I don't need to pass a law to get people to agree with gravitation. It exists. I don't need to pass a law to get people not to cannibalize one another, for the most part, people have an innate understanding of fairness and empathy. I only need the law to proscribe those things that are alien to people. No sodomy: you need a law. No drugs: you need a law. No immodesty: you need a law, and the reason you need a law is that most people accept that this is our life and we should be able to do what we desire with it. It takes a meddlesome petty tyrant to cross the line and to say that those things should be verboten.

The most successful legal systems in history have been those that reflected the natural virtues and norms of the people instead of imposing alien ones upon them. When 51% of the people tell the other 49% what they can and cannot do with their own limited time and resources on this planet, something has gone amiss. And that works both ways. We should not be proscribing limits on the peaceful liberties of Christians and neither should they to us.

a reply to: Nechash

I don't need to pass a law to get people to agree with gravitation. It exists. I don't need to pass a law to get people not to cannibalize one another, for the most part, people have an innate understanding of fairness and empathy.

That's true. Empathy is the only universal social-code/morality among social beings with social brains (humans, monkeys, elephants, etc.). Treating others unfairly based on whether or not their attracted to their own gender, or punishing someone for what they put in their own bodies (drugs, non-kosher foods, etc.), are just opinions made up by different humans. That's why there's no homophobic animals treating other animals unkindly if they engage with the same-sex, nor are there animals punishing/hurting other animals just for eating something they themselves don't like).

It's so simple, but then people complicate things and take away freedom by creating all of these social rules, even some that they can't fully follow (hypocrisy).

originally posted by: Nechash
I think the fastest way to ruining your children's spiritual life in the future is to shove your own religion down their throat.

This is sad but very true...

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