Anyone non-religious here? Please be nice!

[EweSheep]

I recalled a good friend of mine who was a devout Catholic but she does not always follow their strict rules such as BC..because of medical condition and does not want to have any more kids, going thru a divorce at that time as well.

Anyway, at an CW reenactment, there was a Southern Baptist preacher who portrays the "Bible thumping" impersonator, yelling and raving how we are all sinners, blah, blah, blah. She was very visibly upset about how the preacher was acting and how he interprets his words as gospel. If we didn't believe him, we would ALL go to Hell forever. It really rubs her the wrong way, told her friend that she HAS to leave the sermon and the church (a real Southern Baptist). She came back to camp so upset, that my husband and I had to assure her that it was "all for play" and how they did back in those days. We never went to the church to listen his sermons, because we were NOT Southern Baptists nor we believe in it. It took her a good while to get over it and we told her to come to the lesser, modern day non denominal sermons held outside of the church by our pastor friend, who he was not into a specific religion. We stayed behind at camps watching while she went to this "friendly" sermon and she was pleased with the outcome of the non denominal sermon she never went to before. I think it gave her peace and a blissful smile on her face for the rest of the day.

We found out this SB preacher later, was not all play or acted up as our other friend informed us. He is well known among the reenacting friends and he does that rant and rave part in real life as a preacher in a modern day world.

No wonder sometimes I could hear him across the soccer field, preaching and yelling. UGH! Glad I never went there and I do not see any purpose of doing that rant and raving about us sinners going to Hell. My hubby replied, at least it will be warm down there!

 

[deb1]

Quote:
I could not either. But if my child did something illegal or wrong, I would push them to accept the consequences. If they rob a bank, I will encourage my children to confess to the police, but I won't stone them for doing that. Never would I believe that I was getting messges from God telling me to kill my kids. If I hear other voices telling me to do wrong, I will turn myself into the mental ward for a complete psych evaluation.

I went to a service in December at a family member's (terrible, fundie) church that dealt with this very thing. I was literally quivering with fury by the end of the sermon. He was all over the place about how God should be the only real love in a person's life, how if God's not first you're doing it wrong, blah blah blah.
I leaned over to my partner and whispered, "Oh, we've been doing it wrong...I guess that's why we're so happy and successful...",
which set us to giggling and nicely cut the tension.
To me, the "God should come before anything else" is a very transparent bid to get/keep power in the hands of the church. It's one of my biggest beefs with organized religion of any stripe.

Some people teach that before you can make an authentic conversion to their faith you have to admit that you are worthless and without merit, a horrible, dirty sinner. You don't have to say this to other humans, only to an all powerful deity who made you as you are to begin with.


Something about that has always struck me as wrong.

There is a man who used to be a child star-won't say his name- who tries to convert people by walking up to them and asking, "Have you ever lied?" When the person responds in the affirmative, the former child star says, "Well, then you admit to being a liar." The young man goes through an entire list of such questions. The end is that he wants the person to admit that they have no worth and are sinners so that they will want to accept his faith. The problem is that his reasoning is off. If one lie makes you a liar then one moment of telling the truth makes you totally honest, one act of kindness makes you a saint etc.

I see most people as being basically good. We have to be aware that there are evil people in the world but most of us are decent, caring individuals.

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:
I, too, had a friend like that and today we have not had any close email contacts as we used to. He questioned my faith too much that I had my Dad help me interpret and told me that you gotta get this verse backed up. It bothered me that he called me "Judas" and it still does today and he suggested I go to the "non-believers" and I did ask him for his forgiveness of my shortcomings/bad judgements. he told me that it was NOT up to him to forgive me, only God can and I have to ask him for forgiveness. That was the tipping point of my confusion, why can't we forgive as friends without having God into it whether or not misterpret His Words or anyone? It DID change me right then and there and being "Judas" may have made me stronger. I do not like to lie, it does not sit well with me but if I do not believe in it, why press it on to me? Believe it or not, friendship or not, I decided as long he is there (yes in BYC and WCNA sites), I will remain polite and friendly, and not give anything to him to feed off of which I know now what press his buttons. He does have great birds but it is sad that we parted ways in a mutual manner. He can disown me as a friend, but I will remain in good recommendation if anyone wants to know of his chickens.

 

[EweSheep]

Redux, have we gone off the trail here????????

Objections, anyone?

 

[deb1]

Quote:
yeah, we better get back on the subject. LOL

My apologies to redux and the moderators.

 

[bsruther]

I'm an agnostic and have been for many years. I was raised christian and went to church every sunday growing up. I don't know if there's a god and I don't really care for that matter. If there is a god, he wouldn't expect me to worship him and pray to him and beg his forgiveness for my transgressions. If he did, he would be an arrogant god and therefore couldn't be perfect. My wife considers herself to be a recovering catholic and pretty much has the same mindset as me when it comes to religion. We consider ourselves honest people with high moral standards. We try to be considerate of others, friends as well as strangers. We raised our son catholic and sent him to catholic schools. We allowed him to make his own decisions about religion and didn't try to influence him with our views. I would consider him to be agnostic as well, but don't know for sure as it's a subject that rarely comes up. I do know that he turned out to be a kind, loving, generous person and is honest, almost to a fault.
I've known many religous people that are true to their religion and are good, decent people and they usually don't wear their religion on their sleeve. From what we've experienced, the people that do wear their religion on their sleeve are the ones that can't be trusted at all. They hide behind the mask of religion to cover up their true evil. Those are the ones that really creep us out.
I believe religion is a good thing to a point. There are a lot of people that need religion to provide direction and keep their lives on an even keel. But the church (in general) of 40 years ago is not the church of today. Religions have become so competitive and political, they seem to be outliving their sole purpose (and who knows what that is any more).
As far as life after death goes, when you're gone, there is no more you, in any way, shape or form. For me to think that there is life after death would be the ultimate in selfishness and arrogance. When a chicken dies, that's the end of the road for him, as it is for me and I have no problem with that whatsoever. If I can't have life here on earth, I don't want it anyway. This is the life I know and love and any other life would be substandard.

Sorry if I offended anyone or came across as being harsh.

 

[Penturner]

Edited - this isn't a thread for proselyting. It is for the non-religious to discuss their feelings. There are other threads where other faiths can discuss issues in a respectful manner.

 

[Penturner]

Edited - see previous note

 

[Reinbeau]

Please resist the pull to 'convert' anyone in this thread, it isn't the purpose. We'd like this thread to continue in the same respectful manner it has been so far.

 

[Organics North]

never mind .. you beat me too it..

on