Oh it will happen too. But it’s worth it.
If a friend or familiar is not okay talking about a subject, or clashes horribly with you in the topic, just give the silence hint and find something else to talk about. But if this keeps hapening or he/she doesn’t take the hint my suggestion is to soft ghost the person to avoid leaving a bad taste.
I’m terrified of just finding out that all I do is for nothing and nothing means anything at all.
Here’s the thing: you’re right to feel that way depending on your surroundings. I work in construction in Texas (and kinda look the part) and it is astonishing how many people are willing to buy into bullshit, and expect you to do the same, because that’s what everyone else does. Finding another family that isn’t gargling right wing propaganda, “god-fearing”, or just one brand of asshole is so difficult around here.
Since our children were born we have been increasingly intolerant of all that nonsense. This has unfortunately led to our support system dwindling away because we aren’t willing to compromise on the morale standards we want our kids exposed to.
This was my impression visiting Texas a few months ago (went for the eclipse and visited Houston, Austin, and Dallas).
Especially in Houston, it seemed that the propaganda was everywhere. Never mind being a city that could very much use some light-rail and instead is just a massive web of super wide highways (that still get congested). Seeing a Billboard announcing the Epoch Times as “the number 1 most trusted news”, a half a mile before a Joel Osteen megachurch, really made me realize how much these ideas spreading so much are a product of their environment.
Me - be white and wear my veteran’s hat for no reason other than it’s one of the few out there that’s actually comfortable to wear.
Random conservatives - racism mode go!
I usually make one attempt to highlight their stuff, see if they’re self aware at all, and then excuse myself from the conversation. Otherwise they always, and I mean every time, accuse me of stolen valor when they figure out I’m not a conservative.
Yeah apparently being white and having a beard with a hint of unfortunate RBF is enough to signal racist around here. The toughest part is when it’s coming from your professional superiors.
Yes, white male here. I can’t tell you how many times I end up alone with some stranger, who looks at me, and decides “yeah, this guy is cool with me being openly racist”. Don’t have a beard, no tatts, nothing on my person that would indicate any political/social position, so I guess being a white dude is enough.
Man, it makes me sad that there are people who feel this way. My friends and family all support research and facts and are willing to accept any that challenges their preconceptions. To anyone stuck with friends and family that doesn’t support them or is willing to accept reality, my heart goes out to you.
I think the hard part is, almost no one realizes that they felt that way until they are finally on the outside.
I remember a really interesting article I read a few years ago that indicated the best way to change someone’s viewpoint was to welcome them into your community or group without requiring a change of mind first.
Turns out our social and emotional needs will trump our rational or logical side almost every time.
So you’re 100% right. What people need is a caring group of family and friends who encourage each other to question themselves in an effort to learn and grow.
My friends and family all support research and facts and are willing to accept any that challenges their preconceptions.
So you might say that this is a trait that is considered essential for being a good member of your social group?
I would say so. I would also say it’s an important part of being an intelligent, rational individual, personally.
It sounds like your group wouldn’t readily welcome a member who wasn’t an intelligent, rational individual. I wonder, if a current member experienced a crisis that led them to a kind of blind, irrational faith, would they still be equally welcome?
I fear this is the wrong take on this issue. The rule communities should follow should not be “make sure to get the facts right so that you don’t excommunicate those who get the facts right”. It should be “don’t excommunicate people who get the facts wrong, because you never know if you got them right yourself and if you punish dissidents too hard you’ll never be able to shift toward the correct world view”.
Can I join your family then… 🙃
Sure, we’ll invite you to thanksgiving
Me and veganism relationships
The interesting thing is I can’t tell if you’re talking about yourself as vegan, others who are vegan, or veganism as a concept.
Nah it’s not you, it’s me phrasing my thoughts so no one understands shit
This is what held me back for a long time, and I have to say, the fear is well founded. It has definitely driven a wedge between me and my community. The breakthrough is realizing that’s okay.
This describes Christianity (to an extent). When I turned atheist (because I couldn’t believe in God/Jesus anymore, not because I didn’t want to) there is this very Church-shaped hole in your proverbial soul that needs time to close. It’s a very sobering, yet lonely, way to live life, but due to the internet you don’t find yourself lonely for too long, but I imagine it used to be a pretty terrifying way to live life pre-internet.
I am lucky my Christian family still loves me, and I know they only proselytize to me (every now and then) because they care.
This is something that is extremely difficult to process. Most religions that have persisted assuage some of our most natural existential worries (e.g. mortality, right vs wrong, free will, isolation vs being watched over).
When someone stops believing, all of those questions float back to the surface, and “we really don’t know” is such an unsatisfying answer.
Yeah I grew up before the internet was really big enough to find people in my situation so I just had to suffer in silence because I live in a very religious area.
It created a lot of resentment that I’ve had to struggle through because I was basically ostracized whenever my lack of faith was brought up. Some of the kindest sweetest people I’d ever met suddenly would act as if my existence was a disgrace.
My faith in Christianity was actually fading, and I started to research it. Doing so actually strengthened it and led me to being baptised lmao.
I don’t agree with the downvotes here. I fall on the other side of the theistic question from you, but if you’re being sincere in your comment then I think you deserve appreciation, not condemnation. The way I see it, I have no answers, so I can’t judge anyone else’s conclusions, I can only judge them for being unwilling to ask the question and weigh their beliefs against it. A genuine belief, a conviction, should be one that survives trial by fire and stands up to any reasonable scrutiny. If your belief can’t do that, it’s not an actual belief, it’s a superstition. Taking you at your word here, if you genuinely weigh your belief against opposition rather than run from it and still come out with the conclusion of deistic belief, I’m not going to judge you. At least you’re doing the work.
Sorry for the unnecessary soapbox here, seeing the majority downvotes just left a bad taste in my mouth on this one.
edit: improved wording slightly
Thank you ❤️
You haven’t seen them going around posting that exact same comment elsewhere then and telling people it’s the only true faith and going all evangelical with “if you don’t specifically believe in Jesus you go to hell and that’s the only truth that’s real” then?
Cause it feels like they are going sniping for followers paid for by the “He gets us” campaign.
To the best of my knowledge this is the only comment I’m aware of from them, and the only one to which I am referring. I am NOT attempting to endorse this person or their message in general or as a whole.
It’s alright just providing context for my down votes.
I read it like someone saying they’ve done the math and determined the pyramid scheme is a great idea.
It’s scary how often we’re asked to question reality. It’s equally scary how easy it is to just give in.
Agnotology is a very interesting way of studying this. Also, I’m vegan.
This comic is too true and everyday to be actually funny to a vegan, we just sigh and nod.
Vegan, i aswell am btw.
Agnotology sounds interesting, i now know how i will spent some time on work tomorrow.
Reading theory on company time is just intellectualism 101.
That’s fair.
People are bad with reality.
Blistering irony.
Or just to get fake negative points on Lemmy.
But we can’t even process reality as it is. Our brains can’t handle it and hallucinate the gaps. Someone who might think their opinions are based on reality might base it on a lie that their brain made up subconsciously. Hence why eyewitness statements are not treated as a cold hard fact.
church
My faith in Christianity was actually fading, and I started to research it. Doing so actually strengthened it and led me to being baptised lmao.
Its funny, I did the same thing and it actually destroyed any vestiges of faith I still had. The more I know about Christianity/Catholicism, the less I believed. Too much self contradictory bullshit, and too much preaching without enough action to go with the words.
Christianity/Catholicism? Don’t you mean just Roman Catholicism? As you can have Christianity without the Roman Catholicism. When I was researching faith and religion, I was able to rule out Roman Catholicism. I know what you mean about self contradictory BS (things such as purgatory being unbiblical, perpetual virginity of mary despite Matthew’s gospel strongly implying that she consummated her marriage and the Bible mentioning Jesus’ brothers several times, etc). As with preaching and action - I care more about the faith and my own spirituality than letting myself be defined by what others are doing. Of course, I’ll always call people out when they are being heretical and/or abusive or misusing the faith (I remember there was an Indian guy who claimed to have converted to Christianity but I later realised he did it because he hated Muslims so much, and he ended up actually dropping his identity as a “Christian” because I kept telling him that Christians cannot call for a mass extermination of a religious group. Pretty funny but also a sad story), but I wouldn’t stop being a Christian just because other Christians are being hypocrites. Why should I let them take what Jesus did for me away from me?
Why should I let them take what Jesus did for me away from me?
Why did God have to send his son to die for you? Why can’t he just decide not to punish people without requiring a blood offering?
Because then there’s no justice for sin. God is perfectly just, and forgiving people for no reason isn’t justice
But God is the one doing the justice, right? Why does he have to have a blood offering? Sending his son to die when he could merely decide to forgive without a blood offering feels weird. The one who would punish us if it didn’t happen would be god himself. He could simply choose not to carry out that punishment rather than going through the act of having his son literally die an excruciating death.
If he forgave everyone for no reason, then there’s no justice and sin goes unpunished.
If someone damages your car and you forgave them for it, would that mean there’s no payment? No, you’d pay for it yourself. So God paid for the price of our sin Himself.
Christianity/Catholicism? Don’t you mean just Roman Catholicism?
No, christianity as a whole. The sourcebook is a self contradictory slapfight perpetuated by whomever translated the particular copy you’re looking at, and is a convenient shield for those who choose not to follow the faith, but want a way to hurt/control others while pretending they do.
There are a lot of good lessons to take out of the sourcebook, but there’s more chaff than wheat to be had, and I just have no time for it anymore.
Why should I let them take what Jesus did for me away from me?
No one is saying you should let them take that from you. But you don’t have to be a christian to be a good person and to use the positives you gained from your experience. I took the good parts of the religion and moved on with my life. I’m still a good person and have the beliefs my christian family instilled in me, I just don’t care to surround myself with religious types for reasons that most religious people feel offended by.
The Bible doesn’t contain any contradictions. Also, nobody can be a good person, not even Christians.
So you’re saying we will all go to hell? To hell with Christianity then
Once again, someone thinks if they don’t believe in something, it won’t be true. I’m not a Christian because I simply like what it teaches- I’m a Christian because it’s true.
Not even Jesus? Lol
NO contradictions. Sure.
Tell me you haven’t actually read the bible without telling me you’ve never actually read the bible.
Also, that’s a bullshit copout by bad people who have no intention of improving themselves.
I have read the Bible. I don’t see all of these “contradictions” people talk about
The Bible doesn’t contain any contradictions
This the funniest thing I’ve read all day.
I’m no longer religious, but I find that religion has some sense in its own right. Provided it’s not shoved down people’s throats.
Depends what you mean as “shoved down people’s throats” do you mean normal evangelism via freedom of speech or Christian nationalism, like the Louisiana 10 commandments cringe
You’re getting downvoted because so many Americans experience normal evangelism as people literally thumping a Bible while threatening them with hell and damnation. And evangelists (the religious sect, not the act) are largely responsible for the repeal of women’s rights in the US. They’re currently trying to make women unable to travel without government permission.
So it’s kind of a loaded word.
The religious sect are evangelicals, not evangelists.
A sincere Christian evangelist doesn’t want you to go to Hell - The thing is, we completely believe in it and we are warning you about what we believe is inevitable. The most hateful thing we could do is not warn you about it.
Yeah that’s a pretty thin hair when Americans read about evangelicals protesting soldier funerals.
Or like it was at college where they literally ran around the public areas looking to interrupt any same sex PDA.
I know there are people who recruit respectfully and inclusively. I’ve met them. But we all have more exposure to the other kind.
I understand what you mean, and I am sorry that you have to put up with these horrendous individuals.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
To be honest, even proselytisation can come off as being condescending. A Christian is basically telling to the person “my religion is better than yours. You are a sinful person and you will be cast into the fires of hell. It will not happen to you if you accept Jesus as lord and saviour!” And it is not like evangelisation is done out of pure power of persuasive words and good teachings from the bible alone. Aside from threat of eternal damnation, many missionnaries tend to incentivise people by offering food or help, in exchange for the locals to listen to proselytisation.
Look at it from our perspective, though. We fully believe in Hell, and that everyone is sinful and deserving of it. And nobody can escape it without living a life of genuine repentance to God, trusting alone in the sacrifice that He made for us. The most hateful thing we can do is not warn you about it, but just watch you waltz your own way down to your destruction. Now, yes, there are many hypocrites who aren’t really evangelising at all and only do it to feed their ego, and God will deal with them justly, but for me and many others, we don’t want you to go to Hell. We want you, when your body gives up, to be in Heaven, where there is no more suffering or pain. When I tell people about Jesus and the Gospel - it’s not to further an agenda. It’s out of love and genuine care. And if it means spending resources on feeding people so they’d listen, then it’s worth it. Just like how some places gave out rewards to people who got a COVID-19 vaccine, we wanted to reward someone for doing something that’s for their own good.
If we were absolutely convinced that we had the method to eternal life - and that method is very much free - wouldn’t it be selfish for us to keep it to ourselves and not tell others?
You can offer it but thrusting immortality on those who think death gives meaning to their life is just another form of abuse.
It’s not kindness to demand things of others you can only guide them like a flock and hope they make the right choices.
Respect others right to free will. You accept the no and hope and wait they change their mind by leaving your door open. This is what the devour get wrong.
Except that it’s not 2000 years ago anymore. Literally everyone knows about Christianity, hell and Jesus already. You’re not coming with some obscure new secret.
If they don’t believe it’s because they don’t want to, so please do leave them alone.
If they look interested instead, then yes of course help them out.
But going to them first and starting telling them how their soul will burn in hell for eternity is definitely not a nice thing to do to anyone. Nobody asked your opinion there.
If me and my group of 200 people believe that there is an evil invisible monster that will curse the soul of everyone unless they come to our church and listen to our priest once a week, would you like all 200 of them to come to you and tell you the same story all over again and again until you give up and go? No, I don’t think you’d like that.
It’s just a matter of respecting each other faith (or lack of) and personal freedom.
Fair enough except hell isn’t real. The Talmud/Old Testament doesn’t even mention it.
The Talmud isn’t the same as the Old Testament at all, it belongs to a completely different religion.
The Old Testament mentions hell quite a lot. Such as Daniel 12:2 and Psalm 139:8.
I can think of an example of “shoved down people’s throats” being born into a Jehovah’s witnesses family. 18 years of forced indoctrination. No choice whatsoever. Very damaging.
Oh gosh, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are an abusive cult. I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. It’s annoying trying to reach their members as well as they are taught to immediately stop talking to anyone questioning the Watchtower. I was talking to a pioneer once, revealed that I was Christian and then a guy who seemed to be a minder gave me a “tract” and told me that it was time for him to shut up shop for the night. It was very very strange.
Yes if you say that you are a Christian it’s actually going to put them into a threat mode. Because you are not in their religion, you are in a “false religion” and you may “trick” them away from their religion. So they will talk at you, and if you reason back then will give up. JWs only talk to people who they believe that they have a good chance of converting. If you start we win a conversation with a JW he/she will just give up and spend their efforts elsewhere. It is extremely annoying, especially if it’s your JW family members that you are trying to reason with. It’s amazing the power of daily brainwashing…
If you reason with them about anything they will tell you to check their website
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