gneiss

I'm glad I'm not the only one!!

Nonviolent reaction has always been interesting to me, mostly because I have so much trouble actually practicing it. I usually keep my cool but in my head I grumble a lot, call people names, and generally want to strangle them when they p!ss me off. That said, I was raised Quaker. It's supposed to be a peace church and somehow even though I dutifully went nearly every Sunday and listened to my First Day school teacher, the lesson never really took I guess. A Quaker once told me that sometimes it's not possible to get past that negative or violent thought pattern but the next best thing was wanting to get past it. *Shrug*

Eroica

Thanks for your opinions everyone. I know that there are very many good people who believe in religion. Its the actual texts, the messages in it, that I hate.. hate that they exist, and hate that people believe in them. The Bible, Koran, and even the holy books of an Eastern religion like Hinduism is extremely violent, bigoted, racist, anti women, every negative adjective I can think of.. of course they preach other things too, and they're poetic, and some people don't take them literally...but they're the source of the religion... the instruments of control. Don't mean to offend anyone but I feel offended that people believe in them.. including my own family. But it causes conflict in me too because I don't want to judge them either.

As for hatred, I know hate is a strong word but I can't help how I feel. Do people here not hate things and other people? lol Don't worry I don't hate anyone on SR.

daisy, you're right. Just sitting around hating religion won't do anything. I should really join some kind of organization that fights or actively campaigns against religion...hmmm I think that might help me stay sober too and maybe i'll feel less angry as a result of it

Bamboozle

I'll be one of the first to raise my hand up in the air.


I think it is important to recognize how you feel and do something positive with those emotions.


Don't get me started on the whole "Stalin was an atheist" crap. He was extremely dogmatic in his views. Marxism and communism cannot be compared to atheism.

Zencat

Okay, a much water downed version from my PM to you. I 'm actually fearful of religious people. I was once angry that something could get such a hold of ones mind...regardless if its good or bad...that when I interacted with such a person I sensed something was amiss. I still get the heebee-geebees when I encounter...how to say this... an entrenched ideology persona? Its like I see the indoctrination has taken over and what remains seems hollow and void of a person. I guess I value doubt and question faith.

gneiss

Like I said:

People stir up crap in the name of their religion (or lack thereof) all the time. So if non-religious folks won't allow religious people to get away with the tired old, "But he wasn't a REAL [Christian/Muslim/Whatever], he was just pretending so he could twist people to his will," the non-religious don't get to use it either.

As far as religious texts being bigoted... they were written in a different time and place. It hardly seems fair to judge a culture by the standards of a completely different one. And to say something approaching, "I hate bigots" is risky, IMO. That's flirting with bigotry in itself. It does worry me though, the number of people who cling to those lessons and use them to justify hatred of others. You'd think sometime in the last 1500+ years society would have moved on, but apparently the more things change the more they stay the same.

Bamboozle

Sorry, gneiss...I realized later that I came across as a complete a$$.






There are people who are religious who do commit atrocities, but not in the name of any religion, just the same as there are atheists who do commit atrocities, but not in the name of atheism. Stalin didn't do what he did in the name of atheism.

When people/countries/groups do commit atrocities in the name of anything dogmatic, whether religious or political, I find that unacceptable. What Stalin did was horrible and wrong.

I do make the distinction between whether it was done in the name of something or not. I don't assume that someone did something just because they are religious unless it's very clear that's the reason they did.

For example:

There are religious groups in the U.S. who campaign and fight for the right to deny rights to gays. They do this in the name of their religion and they have a lot of power behind their movement. Now, this isn't to the level of what Stalin did, but these people use their beliefs as justification for their actions to supress the rights of others. They can hate me all they want as long as they let me be. Problem is, they aren't leaving me and millions of others alone.

gneiss

No worries, Bam. I'm queen of the asses.

windysan

Nice Ass !

Daisy09

"And I tell you that your righteousness – our righteousness – will prevail. Day by day, year by year, generation by generation."

"it’s not about being the same. It’s not even about believing in the same things; it’s about the values we all share."

These lines are from a sermon given by a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago at my church (as some of you know, we're UUs). He and his same-sex partner have a son in Sunday school with one of my daughters. The transcript is here: Unitarian Pride - Rev. Sam Trumbore - timesunion.com - Albany NY. I thought some might be interested in reading it, as I was reminded of it by this conversation. It deals with hate, and religion, and hope, all at the same time

Daisy09

I greatly admire the Quakers. They as a group have historically made a great many sacrifices in the name of peace and should be honored by us all.

Ghandi created the only proactive word for non-violence: satyagraha. According to him, the translation is "holding on to truth", or "truth force". Ghandi wrote, "Nonviolence is a perfect stage. It is a goal towards which all mankind moves naturally, though unconciously." He believed that it is the work towards this unattainable goal that matters, which is pretty much what you were told.

Daisy09

I hate to sound sappy and corny, but I do it all the time anyway

Hate is an emotion, just like any other, and emotions can't be good or bad, they just are...I hate, but I try really hard to hate actions and ideas rather than people. It doesn't always work out that way but as Gniess said, just wanting to not hate is a step in the right direction.

After I had my first daughter, I became aware of things in a different light. I used to fight against things, but I came to realize that it was like banging my head against a wall. I was trying to overcome negativity with negativity and it just didn't seem to work. Now I fight FOR things I believe in, and the positivity of it all has really made me more at peace with the world.

Now we can all make a circle, join hands, and start singing "We Shall Overcome"...

Overman

@ Eroica

'Hate', imo, is a pretty strong word.

Its like watching someone dangling from a branch by one hand on the edge of a cliff. They are looking up at you with fear in their eyes, asking for help. You spit on their face and watch them fall to their death. That is "hate" to me.


@ Gneiss

As the saying goes: "God please protect me from your followers!"

windysan

I just ate a fantastic soft shell crab poboy. It tasted like God.

Daisy09

Has anybody ever told you you're a silly-head? Instead of Big Idiot Man Child, you should say Big Silly-Head. JMHO

gneiss

Ew. I had my first soft-shelled crab experience a couple weeks ago and I must admit: I'm sticking to snow crab in the future. (Preemptive moratorium on jokes about anyone having crabs!!)

gneiss

This makes me feel like some sort of monk. The truth is, as much as Quakers want to work for peace, from what I have seen they (the groups I have been around lately) have adopted a smug sense of superiority regarding their pacifism. They have the same "We're the good guys, we're right. You're wrong and you're bad," attitude that was adopted most recently by the Bush administration (and is adopted by any administration during a war, Democrat or Republican. I think it's only a matter of time for Obama's crew, if it's not already started). It's the same mindset that starts wars, continues them, and does not allow progress toward peace. To see it in a peace church is disturbing and a major reason I stopped attending Quaker meeting and withdrew my membership from the meeting I grew up in. I hope Quakers can get past the idea that they have all the answers because they don't and they were much more effective when they were willing to listen and acknowledge that they might not be right.

That Ghandi guy knew his stuff.

otterbearcat

Hmm, Hmm, HMMMM.

Im not sure spirituality means anything to me...

Im agnostic and I guess I equate spirituality with religion, and if I was forced to subscribe to some ideology it would be something like Taoism.

But Im not, so I dont.



I believe in the possibility of an energy in the universe that kind of holds everything together.

And that when we're quiet and still, that we can pick up on the kindness and compassion in the world.

But that tapping into that energy, kindness, compassion, has nothing to do with a god, gods, a goddess, or dogma.

I dont know...

shockozulu

I don't hate religion, even those organized religions that go against my personal, moral and ethical beliefs. I have a Mormon friend. In fact he recently had a temple sealing. Both his new wife and him are members of Mormon's against Prop. 8. Just because a person is a member of an organized religion doesn't mean we leave our critical thinking card at the door when we enter religious services. In fact, my religion asks that I apply critical thinking daily when I say my prayers.

If a person breaks the law due to their religion, I dislike those actions, but I sure don't "hate" a religion.

As a religious person, that is my view as well. I practice my religion and you practice (or don't practice if you are agnostic/atheist) your beliefs.

Zencat

After thinking this over I have concluded that there is more going on inside me that I may never know how to express it in a calm nonjudgmental manner. Whenever the topic of religion comes up, my fears of what I still dont understand take over me. I can only say for sure that after I left the religion of my parents something happened. It was anger at first, then an awareness, like an opening to all the other possibilities that I did not see wile I was being instructed in religion...more anger followed.
That could be what I was feeling about how I see my past self in religion.
Again me, me lamenting over how I felt during my years in religion. I remembering something was being withheld, hidden from me. Its like there was more to all that but no one would say what. I remember feeling more questions were raised in church that there were answers and the answers I did get were unsatisfying to me. Again there was more truth to it I thought but why or what was it.

I wanted to know more than my parents religion could offer me. I had to find out for myself. I learned about religion through the ages and around the world. I learned about apposing views about religion and then I learned about mythology and the metaphorical.

Joseph Campbell quotes:
"Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble."

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that."

"It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure."

So what am I really angry at? No its not religious people or religion for that matter. And do I really fear religious people. No, not really. As along there are laws in place that protect the believers and disbelievers. Laws that protect free expression of thought. And laws and rights to live a peaceful life and respect the peaceful lives of others, whatever their truth is...I'll be cool. I just don't want the truths of others to cause me any trouble. And likewise I don't want my truth to cause others trouble. I must always remember this.

gneiss

I've seen exactly one person of whom this was true. She was creepy. *Shiver*

I went to church every Sunday growing up and while the people I saw weren't hollow, the whole religious experience was. I sat in a room, listened to some babble about God and spirituality and a bunch of other stuff that was, to me, absolutely pointless. And it was pointless because I'd sit there, allegedly worshiping, but really trying to figure out what I was supposed to be worshiping. I had lots of variety to choose from: Old dude with a gray beard, a fairly white-suburban-middle-class image of Jesus, something more like a Light with no particular form, etc. I never had any sense of whatever it was that everyone else seemed so convinced was there. "Listen for the voice of God," I was told. Riiight. I think you're schizophrenic, dude.