Atheists more religiously literate than religious people.

Originally posted by jeff68
reply to post by SantaClaus

 

I have always thought this was true. I know many people of different faiths and they were not open to anything but what their church tells them, why is it a sin to think for yourself!

Augustine of Hippo might say that thinking for oneself is a sin because it places the will of the individual above the will of God. By disregarding God's truth and replacing it with ones own, the individual attempts to place himself in the role of God, the ultimate prideful act, and the biggest sin.

That's what Augustine might say, anyway.

Originally posted by kove400
reply to post by SantaClaus

 

Its funny cause its soo true, christians are really dumb,

You've probably been talking to the wrong ones.

I assume most atheists are educated and base their beliefs on the pillars of reason and facts.

Anyway, I'd be really interested in knowing what the 32 questions asked were.

No surprise here. An atheist helped me see religion for what it is... a disease.

Originally posted by AmrikazNightmar3
No surprise here. An atheist helped me see religion for what it is... a disease.

You might have been talking to the wrong one, too. There are people on both sides of the conversation that are shortsighted on both sides. Atheists will say that religion is a disease that destroys humanity, and then you'll have a Christian that will say the exact same for atheism.

It's a lot tougher to appreciate both sides of a debate and respect what each bring to the table than it is to dig ones heals in and recite the same old arguments over and over. In fact, doing the latter is taking the fools way out.

If you are going to abandon your god you might want to make an educated decision.Most christian people just take it all at face value,afraid to question the word of their god for fear of devine retribution.Fear of eternal agony in hell is a great way to keep you ignorant and drinking the kool aid.

Its because most of them were raised going to Catholic churches, where they hammer doctrine into children and end up turning people off of religion all together.

It makes perfect sense. God cannot be comprehended intellectually. "He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." This suggests that when you look upon your neighbor's face without any anxieties, envies, contempt, or any other love-blocking emotions, you are abiding in God. But what part of such an experience is about intellectual dogma?

Most churches unfortunately stress the dogma and ignore the part that matters: the psychological transformation. Which is ironic because it's basically exactly the same as Jesus' criticisms of the Pharisees.

reply to post by SorensDespair


I'm open-minded. I've been on both sides of the fence. I claim no religion, but I do believe in something.

reply to post by SantaClaus


Well, I grew up a "church going Christian" became a deist and just recently became "religious." I don't think I really actually read the bible until recently but I've also been doing research into other religions. I try not to focus as much on religion as much as I do living life and trying to spread some love and other positive emotions. I'd say I could probably ace a religion survey though. These days it seems ignorant to not try to learn as much as you can about other people (religion, culture, history, technology, etc...) when we have some thing as vast and informative as the Internet in our pockets. That's just my two cents though.
Peace!

reply to post by SantaClaus


Reading the entirety of the Bible led to the downfall of my Christian beliefs some years ago which in turn eventually led to my current atheism. So the study doesn't at all surprise me - although I'm quite certain there are plenty of apologists who know the Bible even better than I do and plenty of atheists who haven't even picked up a religious text.

So, atheists and deeply religious people alike: How educated do you think you are in something you believe in so passionately?

Not sure how I can be passionate about a non-belief

I am definitely passionate about criticizing religion and encouraging skepticism and logic in regards to supernatural claims, so in that sense I'm what you might term an "Evangelical" Atheist

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


I am extremely passionate about religion, and even my lack of it. I think religion has incredible power and acts in both positive and negative ways. People have overcome something as small as their own addictions and as big as entire civilizations with religion.

In my opinion, most atheists were probably quite theistic at some point in their lives, so I'm sure they can at least relate to a religious person's plight.

reply to post by SantaClaus


I think religion is the ultimate crime.

It's an attempt to polarize morality and control masses with ease. Create a God ("good") create an Anti-God (devil, sins, evil) Severe prejudice can be formed by those who believe because they believe non-believers or followers of other religions will burn in hell. (or some other form of damnation)

It prays on people's greatest fears and hopes, death and eternity. Afterlife - Heaven and Hell or Reincarnation or some other unprovable fiction.

To defend religion by stating it offers some positive things is to say "well the rapist is ok, he paid for my abortion"

This separates sane people, who actually study and verify things before believing, from the rest. Nothing new here.

I dont think people who are religious are dumb.

We must remember that these "Faith" based religions are primarily used as a method of control of the Sheeple.

This goes way back of course, but the "written texts" are just basically laws of how to live within the tribe or society. The parts about, if you dont do what the such and such says then you will go to purgatory, eternal Hell, Damnation, and never eat chocolate again. This is a control mechanism to keep the plebs in line, so the serfs did as the "Masters" desired etc etc. Just read about the Inquizition Times, ooh yeah, lots of God love there.

Religions like Buddism, Taoists, Shinto, Confucious etc teach restraint, respect, love of Earth, Life, peace thru meditation etc.
Of course, none of this has stopped Wars, Murder, Pillaging and Raping, genocide and other fun stuff, by Religious people and atheists alike. But that is Humanity in all it Prime"evil"ness.
I read the King James version of the Bible 30 years ago, confused the Hell out of me with the Thees and thous and Job marrying, Ables, sisters, wifes cousin, who murdered Cains brother's, mother, aunt, 3rd cousin on Gods side, Jesus etc.etc Ad infinitum. Just by reading it you could tell it was a Control device to rule over simple people.
Read the Book Of Mormon too....the biggest load of S... I ever read, couldnt help laughing and disputing just about every paragraph. Definitely a story told by a Meglomaniac that wanted to be famous and have lots of women and money....a little like an olden day Snoop Doggy Dogg, Shizzle my Mormony dizzle fizzzle ya'll, Im Gods prophet, Jammin'.

Actually to me, the Human understanding of science is still fairly basic as well. A lot of our so called Actualities are still Theory. Relativity, Gravity, Space, Time, are still only our concepts of a few thousand years. Astronomers even admit they dont know what all the "Dark Matter" is that occupies most of the "Gaps" in space.

Still........ We Is We Will Be.

reply to post by gort51

I dont think people who are religious are dumb.

I don't think any one stated that. But it does seem odd that people would be willing to believe a story without any evidence, and furthermore label them a follow of that particular story and idea of a God that no one can prove.

From my experience, most Atheists i have met never had "conversion" point. They just never believed in it from the start. Just like fairies, or santa. I mean if evidence was provided, i'd personally be happy to renounce my Atheism. But then again, if i saw santa in the shopping centre, would that silence my doubts about that?

A friend of mine pointed out that most pedophiles have been involved with he clergy, he also pointed out that most schooling is the result of the clergy and hence a high rate of pedophiles. He also said that anyone who believed in the main stream religions needed to see a psychiatrist but never will, and if they did there would not be enough psychiatrist to help them all. And that they appear to be rather brainwashed as they all reinforce the religious concept to each other due to a group collective mentality. I considered this an interesting take on religion. But not the only one.

reply to post by marsend


I think your friend is wise and rightly sceptical.

Peace.

reply to post by awake_and_aware


I think I was pretty radically religious until I decided to study it in a university. It was only when I opened my eyes and saw most religions are the same conjecture that I realized their absurdity.

Another way I educated myself was taking a class called "Death and Dying." It showed me that death isn't beautiful and it isn't passing over. Its panicky and terrifying, even if you think you're ready for it. I think that's a large part of the reason Kevorkian was so anti social and strange... By the time he was practicing his own style of medicine, he was so desensitized that he saw no meaning in a life that wasn't worth living. That man was front-row to such pain before he even decided to get into pity killing.

I think it's pretty easy to understand why atheists and agnostics are more religiously literate than religious people. The more you know about these faiths, the more convoluted they become.

I mean it's one thing to believe an all powerful being created the universe, it's a straight forward proposal.

It's quite another that this being is 3 gods but also only 1 god. The preachers then try to explain it in heavily convoluted reasoning that almost seems to want to convince you out of sheer confusion. Then you learn the history of the belief and learn it was added to the doctrine by church leaders.

So many religious people don't get past the simple outstages of religion but listening only to what their preachers tell them. Those more likely to go down the rabbithole find themselves in vagueness and convoluted country and it becomes harder and harder to believe that underneath it all, it makes any sense in the first place.


So you'll find that the more you ask atheists about their experiences, the more you'll find that they either are ex-Christian or took the time to go down the rabbit hole when they first encountered people trying to convert them.


It's kind of like how it's hard to believe in Santa Claus when you really think about it and kids who do, disbelieve first.