Ian wrote a post recently claiming that those of us who want to talk with religious folks might just be hypocrites. I can most definitely see his point - but I think his point is wrong and that comparing religious people to child molestors is a pretty disgusting and unfair way to make a point.

I agree that the loud and proud atheists have done a great job at getting atheism on the front lines. Dawkins at al have been very effective in making atheism more “main stream” and well known. However, this is where mine and Ian’s opinions differ - greatly.

In my eyes, if anyone is a hypocrite it are those who are like Dawkins et al. So many flaming atheists claim that religion is closed minded and detrimental to the well being of individuals. However - a lot of these atheists are just as closed minded as the christians/jews/muslims/whatever that they’re attempting to stand up against. It’s hypocritcal to stand so firmly against something because you think it’s haulting people’s lives and ability to live their lives in the way you think they should be living it.

Ian says this

If you call yourself an atheist and believe that many religious beliefs are down right wacky

I do think religion is pretty wacky. I think it’s pretty silly to believe in most religious things. However - I also see that not everyone thinks like that. I see that my mom finds comfort and love in her religion, and I’m curious about it. What makes her believe? What does she cling onto? What would make her stop believing? Is she upset that I don’t believe?

How else am I supposed to fill my curiosity about something like religion without talking to those who are religious. The difference between this and a child molestor is that a child molester is breaking the law and doing something that I know is fundamentally unethical and disgusting. Being religious isn’t fundamentally unethical and disgusting. If a particular religion did advocate child molesting, or killing people, or something cultish - then yeah, I absolutely 100% wouldn’t give them my time of day - that’s why you’ll pretty much never see anything about scientology on my blog.

I think Ian is looking at it from a very narrow view. Not all atheists think that religious people are a waste of space or “wacky”. Some of us are genuinely curious about the sociology behind religion. I want to know everything about what they’re thinking. I don’t think it’s fair to mock their religious ideologies or to tell them that they’re “wrong” or “stupid” for believing what they do.

So yes, I do love what Hemant is doing over Dawkins et al. I would rather listent to Hemant speak about looking for more - than Dawkins talkabout already knowing everything.

Gretta Vosper is a minister at West hill United Chruch. She’s a fantastic speaker (like, nice to listen to) and a really nice person. But her talk in general - less than impressed.

In my personal opinion there are a few things you need in order to call yourself a christian. i don’t claim to be any sort of religion expert - but I’ve grown up with it, lived with it and studied it. And from what I’ve seen in my short couple decades on earth is that generally, you need God and/or Christ to call yourself a christian.

Gretta preposes that neither of these really exists. She talks about not taking the bible literally or even really using it for anything useful.

Gretta is invovled with what the United Church is calling “progressive christianity“. Ever since the book Why Christianity Must Change or Die came out ministers who deem themselve “progressive” have been trying to save their church. What are they really doing? Taking steps to becoming secular.

• no god
• no christ
• not taking anything out of the bible literally
• admitting that the bible is basically…entirely fictional
• saying that “community” is what is important…

It’s secularism, only she’s covered it with fluffy bullshit about “love”…we all need to love, believe in love, follow love, let love guide the way… blah blah blah. She’s coping out by not just saying “I’m agnostic, and this isn’t progressive christianity, it is the realization that we’ve been obeying outdated and detrimental rules and thoughts”. I’d like for once for a minister to just say that. She did, however read some songs that her husband had written, it was nice to hear something like that being done in CFI - I didn’t particularly like it, because it just felt like church, but I know other people appreciated a more “artsy” approach to things for once.

My step dad tries to get around it by calling god everyone’s “something”, as if this is some sort of appropriate definition. Whatever you want to call god, you get to call god. Whatever you want to call faith, spirituality or belief is valid, because it’s your “religion” so no one can deny it. That’s where this is going. I can’t deny my step-dads god because apparently I don’t “understand” it, and I can’t take away his definition of “his lord”. I’m sorry, but to me, when you’re allowed to arbitrarily define things that are so important it tends to not only lose meaning, but credibility.

Two things specifically that Gretta said that made me nearly puke:

1. “I’m not an atheist. Just because I don’t understand - I don’t believe”
2. “The soul is your DNA altering your aura around you”

I’ll allow you to see the stupidity of #2 all on your own - but #1… it made me boil inside. I hate it when people tell me I’m an atheist because I don’t understand religion. I don’t get what it feels like to feel ‘christ’ and to be ‘loved’ by ‘god’. I do know what it’s like to think those things. I was religious for many years. So I do know what it’s like to feel the “love” and all the fluffy emotions that come with something that can offer so much support in life. I just refuse to not look past it all.

Anyway - good for CFI to put on an event with a minister, I didn’t like it, but it definitely brought in a different crowd and it was good to hear a different opinion and view point, no matter how much I didn’t like it. It made for good bar fights later, too.

My grandma’s memorial was on Saturday, it was in a church - because that’s where she wanted it. It was the first time I had been in a church in a long while. My brother and I kept shooting one another glances when we’d have to pray or something.

It was really hard to respect my grandmother’s wishes without exploding about sitting inside of an almost cultish setting ["now lets drink the kool-aid" my brother said to me at one point].  My step-dad spoke at one point and it was quite nice because he talked a lot about personal experience type stuff. But later on the minister of the church that we were at started to speak.

It was so horrible. I wish I had a copy of what he said.It’s not a good start to something whe you begin a new thought at a funeral with the words “I don’t want to be disrespectful…but…” … and then go on about “yeah, she’s dead, but the church will be okay!” Please, that’s totally not what I wanted to hear at my grandma’s funeral.

It was shitty to be so disconnected from what was going on. The only times when I actually felt like I could relate to what was going on was when my little cousin did a little talk, and when my step dad was telling stories about how we all viewed her. “special k”

Going into church again definitely gave me a huge reminder about why I walked out of the church life. People kept saying to me “She’s in a better place now”… my brother and I had to grind our teeth a little because as far as we’re concerned when you’re dead, you’re dead. The off switch has been flicked. But you can’t be that rude and abrupt with people who have just lost someone so dear to them. I feel so bad when I say to my mom “you didn’t just talk to dad, because dad is dead”. She believes that he’s really communicating with her. I will admit that I did know my grandma died before my mom even told me. I said to a girl beside me “I’m pretty sure my grandma just died” and literally 10 minutes later my mom called to let me know that it had happened. Granted I knew she was sick, but I had just finished a 10 hour shift and hadn’t been updated on her status in a while. …Just a tid bit.

I don’t know how to tell people what I believe when they’re in such a …sad state. Because the biggest way they’re coping is by thinking that she’s in a “better” place. I did buck up enough to say “no, i actually didn’t think it was a nice service” when people asked me if I had enjoyed it as much as they did. Because I really didn’t think it was a nice service. My brother and I promised that who ever dies first - the other will take care of their funeral arrangements, and then leave a note before we die that we want the other’s to be handled in exactly the same way.

Then, to top it all off, we paid the minister $150. SHITTY.

Soooo, things that have made me sad in the past few days:

Marcus Ranum said: (Saturday 07 June, 2008 (edit))

I don’t think anyone is necessarily calling theists ’stupid’.

I am. They are.

Next?

jerk.

worg said: (Saturday 07 June, 2008 (edit))

If you’re tolerant of religion you’re fucking dumb.

sigh.

Standing at my grandma’s grave letting the wind dry my tears so I looked strong.

Not being able to enjoy my grandma’s memorial because the religion kept annoying me.

Seriously though - the comments that I’ve gotten in the past few days have been too much for me to handle. I usually soak all this shit right up and fight right back, just as hard. But I’m pretty sure this is the first time commenters have made me cry! Ah hahaha. Fuck. I think it’s just the emotions of this week.

How do you manage to get through a religious funeral? What sort of respectful response is there to “she’s in a better place”?

At a general meeting in Fort Worth, Texas on April 30th the Methodist church voted on whether or not to maintain their current views on supporting homosexual practices. In the end they voted to maintain that the activity is “incompatible with Christian teaching”.

The vote was to change the mandate to “refrain from judgment regarding homosexual person and practices as the Spirit leads us to new insight”. The supporters lost 517 votes to 416. I guess it gives me a little hope that 44.5% of the people voted to change it. …That’s something.

As I’ve said many times… the church is going to have to change to stay alive - and one of those changes is going to have to be to adhere to things that are becoming the social norm. I guess I say this from a Canadian perspective - where being gay truly is normal. Where as in Texas, it hasn’t really gotten to that point yet. For shame!

The ban “reflects the sentiment of most (church) members and the majority of citizens in the U.S. and many other countries,” said the committee that handled the resolution. “Sanctioning homosexual unions would give the church’s approval to homosexual behavior and relationships, which would be inconsistent” with church teaching.

Who cares about inconsistency? Why not be a leader in recognizing that you don’t live in the 30’s anymore and truing accepting and loving people despite what they do outside of the church? I think this, being more loving and caring, is more consistent with Christian values than banning someone’s homosexuality.

But what’s really scary?

And, after an emotional debate, a slim majority of Methodists agreed to strengthen the church’s advocacy against sexism by “opposing all forms of violence or discrimination based on gender, gender identity, sexual practice, or sexual orientation.”

Two clergy delegates from the Democratic Republic of the Congo forcefully spoke out against the anti-homophobia resolution.

Speaking in French with the aid of a translator, one pastor said that it’s “very sad that the Methodist Church continues to advocate for things that come from the devil. … It is time for us as church to get on our knees and proclaim that we have made a mistake.”

Does that mean bisexuals are like… half devil baked?

I don’t really write about scientology very often. It’s not that I don’t care about it, or that I don’t have HUGE dislikes about what they do. … I just… can’t be bothered to look into it. There are other things that interest me more. However, Ron Brown is highly interested in it, and writes about it ALL the time. Recently he has launched the CarinvUL of The fraudless. I highly recommend everyone take a click over and check out what he has to say. Some of the stuff about scientology is really scary.

For people who don’t understand how dangerous and terrifying it is - really go over and learn about what it’s done to people and why so many in the world are protesting it.

This first CarnivUL(…T) will be dedicated to tracking major developments that have taken place since January in the international protest against the Cult of Scientology, discussing the why of the protest, the who of Anonymous, and compiling some of the best relevant YouTube video produced over the past 3 months.