How have other relgious people put down your lack of belief ?

the_monkey · 19-12-2013 04:35PM #1

Hi,
What have been the most stupid - (offensive in this case) arguments against your lack of "faith" ?
Yesterday I got into a "discussion" with an evangelist - I didn't know he was before otherwise
I would have avoided, no point getting into arguments with extremists.

He said - why don't I just f*ck my sister if there is no God ?
what causes you to be moral ? - to be a good person ?

REALLY??? again this old chestnut of Morals == Religion.

Morals is a proof of a God ... please ..

Then he said faith in Science is exactly the same as faith in a relgion.
I tried explaining that the faith in science is based on hard data, research, observed facts etc..
whereas the faith in his religion is based on a book written 2000+ years ago full of contradictions and anectotes basically.

Astonishingly he couldn't see the difference.

He ended up shouting me out of the room, I never usually discuss Religion, Sport or Politics with people I work with,
I shouldn't have let this get so heated - but he just infuriated me!

Turtwig · 19-12-2013 04:37PM

Never actually happened to me.

19-12-2013 04:38PM

the_monkey wrote: »

He said - why don't I just f*ck my sister if there is no God ?

If he wants to do that and is only stopping because he thinks there's a god, he has issues. Maybe give him a good counsellor number

Sarky · 19-12-2013 04:40PM

Apparently I have to believe in something.

Also I'm a monkey. I suspect that was a dig at evolution, but it's a pity they weren't able to distinguish between monkeys and apes.

gaynorvader · 19-12-2013 04:57PM

the_monkey wrote: »

Hi,
What have been the most stupid - (offensive in this case) arguments against your lack of "faith" ?
Yesterday I got into a "discussion" with an evangelist - I didn't know he was before otherwise
I would have avoided, no point getting into arguments with extremists.

He said - why don't I just f*ck my sister if there is no God ?
what causes you to be moral ? - to be a good person ?

REALLY??? again this old chestnut of Morals == Religion.

Morals is a proof of a God ... please ..

Then he said faith in Science is exactly the same as faith in a relgion.
I tried explaining that the faith in science is based on hard data, research, observed facts etc..
whereas the faith in his religion is based on a book written 2000+ years ago full of contradictions and anectotes basically.

Astonishingly he couldn't see the difference.

He ended up shouting me out of the room, I never usually discuss Religion, Sport or Politics with people I work with,
I shouldn't have let this get so heated - but he just infuriated me!

If there are no morals without the bible, why don't we stone women who have sex out of wedlock? Why do we allow women speak in church? Why do we eat pigs? Why don't we put rape victims to death? Why do we work on the Sabbath? It's because we make choices about what morality to take from the Bible. And if we're overriding the morality in the Bible, it pretty much proves we don't need it to make moral choices.

Cabaal · 19-12-2013 05:03PM

gaynorvader wrote: »

If there are no morals without the bible, why don't we stone women who have sex out of wedlock? Why do we allow women speak in church? Why do we eat pigs? Why don't we put rape victims to death? Why do we work on the Sabbath? It's because we make choices about what morality to take from the Bible. And if we're overriding the morality in the Bible, it pretty much proves we don't need it to make moral choices.

AH NOW,
if there's one thing any christian hates its you pointing out stuff like that in the bible,

It contains the words of their god, but only the words they believe in
:rolleyes:

robindch · 19-12-2013 05:19PM

the_monkey wrote: »

Yesterday I got into a "discussion" with an evangelist - I didn't know he was before otherwise

I ended up having a dead-parrot style conversation with the last evangelist I spoke with a few years back. They seem to take the whole thing a lot less seriously if you're in stitches and stick to a single point. Here's roughly the conversation:

Evangelist: Jesus loves you.
Robindch: Uh, no. Jesus is dead.
Evangelist: No, he's alive in heaven.
Robindch: Nope, dead as a doornail.
Evangelist: And he'll be coming back to....
Robindch: No, he won't. He's dead you see.
Evangelist: ...to judge the living and the dead.
Robindch: No, he won't be judging anybody. He's dead. Won't be coming back either.
Evangelist: Why are you rejecting his saving grace?
Robindch: I'm not rejecting anything. I'm telling you this guy's dead, so he can't offer me anything. Been dead a long time too. Have you noticed that?
Evangelist: You hate god.
Robindch: God and Jesus are consubstantial?
Evangelist: Uh, what? Uh, yes. Yes, they are.
Robindch: Then god's dead too. And the holyspirit. They're all dead. And we'll all be dead soon.
Evangelist: Uh, ok. Look, I gotta go.
Robindch: Have a nice day!

Obliq · 19-12-2013 05:20PM

Jernal wrote: »

Never actually happened to me.

Nor me. Worst anyone religious ever did to my beliefs was call me a pagan. They now know what a pagan is. I have found that it's usually people just having the wrong idea about what an atheist believes that has rubbed me up the wrong way, like assuming that I believe in the 'soul' or 'spirits' as if they're real.

wp_rathead · 19-12-2013 05:31PM

the best I've heard was "You don't believe in God? What, are you like a Prodestant?"

the_monkey · 19-12-2013 05:32PM

bluewolf wrote: »

If he wants to do that and is only stopping because he thinks there's a god, he has issues. Maybe give him a good counsellor number

Exactly

SpaceTime · 19-12-2013 05:39PM

It's never happened to me in Ireland, but I was literally yelled at by a US-based Irish American (and I use that term loosely as he'd about as much connection with Ireland as I have with Kentucky ... I drove past a KFC once!).

Anyway, he gave me a lecture about how I was a disgrace to my nationality. I gave him a lecture about how he was actually insulting my nationality and had no concept of what it was to be Irish if he thought it meant going to mass and being a catholic!
I really got quite angry with him (and a few other people with him at a dinner thing) because I felt I was being ganged up on by a bunch of weirdos who felt that they could basically attack what is a huge part of my identity - being Irish.

Also, while living in Spain my elderly neighbour gave me a lecturing about how I was living in sin!
I didn't take her very seriously as that would pretty much mean that everyone I know in Spain is in her bad books in some way or another. I later found out she is also a closet fan of Franco! She even had photos of him up in her apartment !!!!

19-12-2013 05:41PM

SpaceTime wrote: »

I didn't take her very seriously as that would pretty much mean that everyone I know in Spain is in her bad books in some way or another. I later found out she is also a closet fan of Franco! She even had photos of him up in her apartment !!!!

I have to admit I find it odd to see photos of the president up in usa airports

SpaceTime · 19-12-2013 05:43PM

bluewolf wrote: »

I have to admit I find it odd to see photos of the president up in usa airports

It's a little different given that Franco was a brutal dictator. It would be more like having a picture of Mussolini up in your dining room in Italy!

If American airports want to put up pictures of the president, that's up to them. It's a little odd from an Irish or European context, but they're not some kind of negative figure.

Unfortunately, there are a % of 'auld-wans' in Spain who hanker after to the 'old days' a little too much.

19-12-2013 05:48PM

No that's true, it just popped into my head when you said that

robindch · 19-12-2013 06:45PM

bluewolf wrote: »

I find it odd to see photos of the president up in usa airports

Likewise. You see the same thing in North Korea, and I suspect for a similar reason.

shruikan2553 · 19-12-2013 10:01PM

Supposedly I must have a sad life because I dont need to be told what my purpose is.

Brian Shanahan · 19-12-2013 10:33PM

the_monkey wrote: »

Then he said faith in Science is exactly the same as faith in a relgion.
I tried explaining that the faith in science is based on hard data, research, observed facts etc..
whereas the faith in his religion is based on a book written 2000+ years ago full of contradictions and anectotes basically.

What's even worse is you don't (and can't) have faith in science. Science is simply a body of theories about reality which have been rigourously tested over the years and have been shown to work better at explaining the parts of reality they were created to explain better than any alternatives. And as soon as an even better explanation is thought up of and tested then it becomes the norm.

Having faith in science is a bit like having faith in java or html.

Turtwig · 19-12-2013 10:35PM

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Having faith in science is a bit like having faith in java or html.

The latter two never work though!

Brian Shanahan · 19-12-2013 10:46PM

Jernal wrote: »

The latter two never work though!

Ok then it's a bit like having faith in your chair or your tv.;)

Days 298 · 20-12-2013 04:06PM

My old religion teacher during the whole Savita and abortion debacle couldnt understand why I was pro choice even though "God made life and something something destroy it". Apparently I was biased because of lack of faith and therefore could be dismissed as the census clearly shows Catholics are a majority. The guy was a real charmer, apparently because I was atheist it meant I wanted every baby aborted as from his perspective none should be aborted and a middle ground is impossible :rolleyes:.

Yah religion in public schools! Thankfully no more religion classes for me ever again.

kylith · 20-12-2013 04:16PM

My mother makes cracks about me catching fire if I step foot in a church, my father just talks sadly about me losing my faith. Randomers have asked how I can be moral without religion. I laugh at my mother, explain to my dad that I just don't believe, and point out to the randomers that their attitude says more about their morality than mine.

Cabaal · 20-12-2013 04:30PM

Kicked out of religion class numerous times in secondary years ago for questioning the teacher,

One example that always stuck in my mind is she said people are born knowing the difference between right and wrong,

I called bull**** on this and said right and wrong is thought by the society the person grows up in and if a person grew up in a country where everyone thought it was ok to murder somebody for disrespecting their family then they'd think this is ok. They would know no difference.

She said I was wrong and kicked me out, of course history has proven me very right on this one.

SpaceTime · 20-12-2013 04:51PM

The worst I got was in a private, catholic primary school we'd a priest as a religion teacher.

Every week I used to get asked "what was the gospel at mass on Sunday?" I'd say I didn't know and I got lectured and told I would be expelled from school and that I would be banned from going to secondary school!

He also told me that my parents clearly were irresponsible and a big load of other very insulting nonsense.

Unbelievable stuff for the late 1990s and this was in Dublin, not some remote rural, conservative backwater or something.

Rubberchikken · 20-12-2013 04:56PM

never get into a 'discussion' with an extremist, religious or otherwise.
they don't discuss, they preach, and if all else fails, shout and insult.

it's funny, to me anyhow, how the people who spout on so much about religion, rarely practice the basic tenants of religion - any religion.

smacl · 20-12-2013 05:21PM

Going to primary school in Dublin in the 70s, as an atheist (or pagans as we seemed to be referred to back then), there was one mum who wouldn't let me play with her son, as she thought that atheism might be infectious. Turns out she was right, and after a bunch of my mates decided they didn't believe in God either (and more importantly, have to go to church), an angry PTA meeting ensued, which resulted in the principal asking me rather apologetically to stop telling people God wasn't real. I agreed on the basis that the religious kids stopped calling me a pagan. They didn't, so I remained pretty vocal in me atheism. Never did get that whole Christians calling atheists pagans thing.

SpaceTime · 20-12-2013 05:24PM

Ireland's full of stuff like that though and just good old fashioned sectarianism too.

For example, a close friend of mine was growing up in a suburban area of Ireland in the 1980s/90s and was told by a friend of theirs that "my mammy says I can't play with you anymore because you're a protestant"

In their early 30s now and that is still burnt into their memory as being told "you're an outsider" and they're still quite upset about it.

Thankfully I think things have moved on a lot since the 80s and even 90s, but there's a lot of institutional sectarianism built into the education system in particular here and we do not really face up to the reality of it or accept that it's there.

I don't really see splitting kids up into different schools organised by religion and gender as much better than what was going on in the US deep south other than we're not exactly oppressing groups, just keeping them separated out and denying them a sense of community with the rest of the country.

matrim · 20-12-2013 05:33PM

The one that annoys me the most is the "It's just a phase" argument. My GFs mother said it to my GF about me last year. I've self identified as Atheist for more than half my life and for most of the time I was "Christian" I didn't know what it meant as I was too young.

SpaceTime · 20-12-2013 05:55PM

It's just a phase = I don't like it and you'll grow out of it as you're just temporarily a bit mentally unbalanced due to your hormones or something.

It's actually very dismissive and a tad insulting.

A very similar thing gets trotted out when someone 'comes out' as gay/bi/lesbian rather a lot too.

smacl · 20-12-2013 06:57PM

SpaceTime wrote: »

It's just a phase = I don't like it and you'll grow out of it as you're just temporarily a bit mentally unbalanced due to your hormones or something.

It's actually very dismissive and a tad insulting.

A very similar thing gets trotted out when someone 'comes out' as gay/bi/lesbian rather a lot too.

Funny thing is, I've never heard of a lapsed atheist

Turtwig · 20-12-2013 07:00PM

smacl wrote: »

Funny thing is, I've never heard of a lapsed atheist

That's because they use 'ex-atheist'.

"As an ex atheist..."

GarIT · 20-12-2013 07:05PM

smacl wrote: »

Funny thing is, I've never heard of a lapsed atheist

It happens, slowly over time you will find yourself going to church more regularly, eventually praying when you really want things to happen. Then you start doing things like stoning your brother to death for wearing clothes made of two different materials.

How have other relgious people put down your lack of belief ?

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