Same way I get on wih other people who have imaginary friends, I just ignore them and worry about the inevitable indoctrination (aka abuse) of their children.
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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As a pwd and a 4th generation Aussie i won't employ any religious types and or conservative types
I don't hold belief against people so long as they act appropriately toward others.
I have some positive and negative opinions toward particular religions based on their foundations and practices.
I kinda long for a sense of spiritual community, but I can't make myself have faith in something I don't believe, no matter how nice it seems. So that kinda sucks
Keep it to yourself and don't hurt others. So long as that's the case, what someone else believes is generally not my business.
I was raised in various evangelical protestant denominations of Christianity, went through a Neopagan period, and landed in atheist-leaning agnostic.
I'm a Pluralistic individual. I believe everyone has a reason to believe. But I think the way someone believes is very telling about that person's personal values.
Ergo, I don't care what a person's religious beliefs are, I care what that person's values are. I believe that is a much more honest approach that doesn't needlessly alienate anyone or stoke petty, tribalistic behavior.
Religious or not, I don't care. What matters is their personality. (except for jehova's witnesses, every time I've interacted with them it made me think they're some sort of cult rather than a religion, so not sure if this counts.)
I do have religious friends that I get well with.
In New Zealand we're currently waiting on the release of a report from a parliamentary commission on the state of the Jehovah's Witnesses following decades of abuse claims. We don't expect it to be light reading.
As someone married to a JW and who is friends with several others, I will say this: like any group of people, they can be a mixed bag. Some are more closeted and "in the truth" whereas others are more outgoing and "worldly".
One the things that I actually admire about them (the individuals, mind you, not the Watchtower organization) is that they really seem to try and live by the teachings of the Bible and study it frequently. Much more so than, say, your average evangelical Protestant.
When my siblings and I were kids, our parents considered themselves christian and we went to church. But as we grew up, we all stopped believing, and we convinced our parents to stop too. I don't generally want to convince most religious people to stop, but we were kids at the time and didn't really know the ramifications of disillusioning our parents. If religious people can believe in "heaven"(or equivalent) and think they are going there, it's a really nice thought that I don't want to take away from them. But people that use religion to hurt people, yeah I kind of want to take it away from them. I guess like anything else in life, if you are using it to be nice and constructive, cool. If you are using it to hurt people, take it away.
The real version of death kind of sucks. It honestly kind of physically hurts/feels bad to even think about ceasing to exist permanently. I feel like that has always been the true purpose and main point of religion. Pretending death is absolutely anything else other than what it really is. I don't want to take that aspect away from anyone.
Pretending death is absolutely anything else other than what it really is. I donβt want to take that aspect away from anyone.
I do, because choosing to believe in a comforting lie is what leads us to despots killing anyone who is different. There's a direct line between the two.
Donald Trump is a comforting lie that a strong man (like God, the ultimate strongman) can come in and just "fix things" because it's easier to believe that than do the hard work of understanding how complex and confusing our world is. That's where we're at, the comforting lies appeal to humanity more than cold truth and it's going to fucking kill us all.
Sorry, humans need to get the fuck over themselves with this not being able to handle death shit or wake up to our own extinction. Eternal life, reincarnation, it's every flavor of stupid.
What is your general attitude towards those who believe in religion whether they are jewish, Muslim, Christian etc etc.
It's totally okay, just like when my nephew talks about dinosaurs.
If a person is smart an has personal opinions about everything or if they are a person of power I won't trust them. Because how can I prove they are a true believer and not a liar or sociopath?
If a person is average human who thinks what the crowd thinks then I won't care.