I’m Not Anti-religious, I’m Anti-intolerance
I’ve often described myself as anti-religious but it’s a very vague label I’ve used for the past 5 or 6 years. It only really applies to the big players out there; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, as well as the slightly smaller religions like Sikhism, and the obvious cults like Scientology, Mormonism and the Westboro Baptist Church. I could hardly call myself anti-religious of all religions, since a lot of them are perfectly fine. I have no beef with Buddhism or Hinduism since they are tolerant religions (as far as I am aware). Women in Hinduism have suffered intolerance in the past, but this has been eradicated in recent years to the point where the only people who practice such things as Sati are not connected with the main Hindu movement.
So no, taking everything into consideration, I am not “anti-religious”. The one thing that draws all the religions I am against into one group is intolerance. They are all intolerant of something (sometimes many things) that has no reason in the modern world, whether it be Homosexuality, Women, Black people (Mormonism), or Psychiatry (Scientology). Some people who subscribe to these religions try to adapt them to better suit the times, but such adaptation is often a violation of a core belief, leaving me wondering why these people seem to prefer picking and choosing beliefs rather than following no doctrine at all.
Despite it’s non-status as a religion, atheism can be considered one of the most tolerant ideals of all time. It does not create a being or belief system that opposes certain facts of life, and in fact evolves with the ever changing social environment. Where theism has many varieties of god, you cannot have many varieties of “no god”.
I would never claim that all atheists are tolerant of everything of course. I am sure there are plenty of racist atheists, as well as plenty of homophobic atheists. The difference is these people are intolerant because they think a certain way, not because they are told to think a certain way. Like the common argument against theism, there are plenty of atheist murderers, but none of them have murdered in the name of atheism. Such a thing could never be said of someone who subscribed to a specific religious doctrine.
Out of the two, “anti-religious” and “anti-intolerance” I prefer the former. Firstly because it is easier to say, but mainly because if I told a theist I was anti-intolerance he would probably say they was the same, not noting the irony of what they were saying (assuming they belong to an intolerant religion). By saying something as agressive as “anti-religious”, I get asked questions, “Why do you hate religion?” “What has is done wrong?”. You are more likely to get your position across if you attack the source, not the perpetrator.
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Well, I have not read all comments, but Hindus and Buddhists seem to be ad examples to me. Think of the Tamil Tigers, think of the clashes in Kashmir. A better example Imho would be Jainism.
Terrbily standard of your kind.
Nietzsche,
Believe me, I have been trying. My father is a preacher, and I attend a religious college. I’ve tried to embrace faith through respect for my family, it hasn’t worked. I tried to develop more mature, daresay logical ideas about it through schooling, it hasn’t worked.
I live in a nearly 100% Christian area. I can’t speak my mind. What I am saying now is that faith makes no sense to me. I’m trying to understand it, but I’m only being pushed further away. I’m not an atheist/agnostic for fun.
People say “Believe in God!” I can’t. I can say I do (making the statement that “I can”), but if God REALLY exists, wouldn’t he know that I’m lying?
I have in no way decided this is how I am going to live my life. I haven’t decided that I am atheist/agnostic for the rest of my days. I have assumed that most atheists would accept a faith in their life, should suitable evidence come along. Evidence beyond something from a pulpit. Pulpit-talk just try’s to explain away the silence of god…
Until then I’m going to live my life as though people are more important than god, and as though my actions count for more than just belief.
I honestly think this is where a lot of people, including atheists, go wrong. Atheists who find fault in Christianity’s beliefs and people just because they don’t like them irritate me just as much as Christians doing the opposite.
We cannot tolerate intolerance.
Yes, it will be intolerable to tolerate it.
Seriously Nietz. What is your deal? either grow up or see a shrink. There are only thee reasons anyone would type like that, because they’re ill in the head (I’m being serious by the way, you sound like a schizophrenic, and I don’t say that lightly, my grandmother and uncle both have it.) because they want to sound deep and mysterious or because they actually think it is deep and mysterious. It’s not cute, it’s not cool, it’s not impressive. None of us believe you’re some sort of mystic with all the answers because you talk like a bad fortune teller character out of pulp fiction paperback.
As for the actual points you made, let’s be honest, you didn’t. You came in with a bunch of airy nothings wrapped in your idiotic diction and then backpedaled faster than an appropriate analogy for backpedaling when Adrian called you on it, redefining your statements defining terms in such a way as to make them meaningless (if god is everything we aren’t then you’ve simply defined god as everything minus one species in the primate family which is a meaningless label and in no way invokes divinity) You used the same tired arguments and unfounded assumptions of the fundamentalists and then had the gall to say you didn’t care about his definitions qualifiers and explanations that he was using to defend himself against your unintelligible attempt at mindfuckery. Use proper diction and actual arguments that follow some rules of logic or reason before you try to convince people you know more than they do. I’d respond to the actual points you made but I hate you and don’t think you’d really respond with anything beyond your 9th grade pseudo poetic prosery.
As for the post itself… Buddhism actually has a pretty violent history, we just don’t know as much about it because as westerners, Asian history is rarely something we study, but they’ve been just as bad as anyone else. The Hindu caste system is also completely atrocious in terms of persecution and unfairness it was the idea behind the royal rule taken to an unreal degree. Also, while I cannot say for certain there is no god I also can’t say for certain that mushrooms aren’t evil alien spaceships sent down to spy on us. But the margin of doubt for both is so small that the conditions where they might be true rely on me being insane or completely misperceiving reality. Also, atheism is not an ideal, it’s a title for categorizing those who do not believe in any god. Now HUMANISM, that is a tolerant ideal.
Hinduism maybe tolerant, but the present generation of Hindus are certainly intolerant, I can give you loads of cases to make my point, and I am not going to base it on those cases alone, I know this because I was born a Hindu.