So...Theophobia?

***If you don't want to read the long post, a 'long story short' is at the bottom.***


So I recently found out you could 'suffer' from phobia of religion. And this could turn into a rant or something so I'll say where i stand on this now so you know where I'm coming from. I have grown up in a souley Athiest family. I have had experiances of religion but not religious experiances. Such as 3 or 4 days before new year's day in London we (the family) were walking through Hyde park, past Speaker's corner and a preacher was preaching the word of Jesus christ, handing out bibles and leaflets and the like, And we stop and listen (as sceptics we don't take heed of it) and continue walking out of the park and one of the Christians there hails us and gives me a leaflet about a course where you could 'learn' to be christian. How you would learn i don't know but you get the idea. Experiances of religion but no religious experiances.


I wouldn't say i have a phobia, but I tend to stay away from religious types over fears for their (I would hate to say corrupted so I'll go with tainted instead) opinions of the world and life and sexuality and freedom and truth and science and all those things which i hold dear. And please, If you are a christian or muslim or jew etc i do not wish to offend as your beliefs are just as precious and just as sacrosanct to you as mine are to me and believe me when i say i respect that. But it's just the things i have been exposed to over the years muslim fundamentalists and extremists when they attacked England on 7/7 and America on 9/11, Muslims killing Jews. The Catholic priest's molestation of Children and then the Catholic church's protection for the priests. The Holocaust. The list extends through centuries and decades and millenia.
:bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::bang:


Now at this point you may think i am some-what of a biggot or Narrow minded hater but i have religious friends and would happily buy them a drink etc but religion itself...I can't seem to get over the killing and bloodshed it's caused. I wouldn't call it a phobia as a phobia is irrational fear. :icon_sad:
It's also the the way religion restricts freedom. The freedom to express. As you can probably tell i am very passionate about this sort of thing. It seems to me that if you do something that say...muslims don't like, they riot like they did when the BBC broadcasted a drawing of the Prohet Mohammed which was later dicovered that this was against their religion and i find myself just watching/reading the news and thinking to myself that they shouldn't have the right to 'not be offended'. And that doesn't mean i condone or endorse being abnoxious and offencive but if someone is being offencive to you, be offencive back. In the case of the muslim riot, it's not the IBC, its the BBC. :dry: You see where im going.

Another thing that has caught my attention is Sharia Law (and for those of you who don't know what it is, look it up before continuing to read this last bit) and it's introduction into European states. Some people have dubbed it as the Islamisation of Europe but i think that's abit of an over statement. It's just scary.


Again i would like to push the fact that I am all for freedom of religion and the right to believe what you want. But i just find it all abit scary and frightening if anything.


Sorry for the long rant.


So basicaly I don't think i have an Irrational fear of religious beliefs and ideology' but the meanings and restrictions behind it...

Maybe the word 'Discuss' would be appropriate at this stage.

 

I think that at this point any conclusion that is made regarding how the world and life came about is a leap of faith of some sort. Whether it is a miracle or not there isnt really evidence to support either conclusions.

Religious scientists tend to point to all the natural wonders of the laws of the universe and say that it must be the work of the creator, I say, sure what you observe is wonderful, but just as the way you write a lab report or a thesis, some interesting natural law ----> some logic ----> god exists, fill in the "some logic" part.

The other way is basically saying some natural law ----> some logic ----> there is no god.

Either way, you can't say anything. It requires faith to submit yourself to any group.

 

"Whether it is a miracle or not there isnt really evidence to support either conclusions." There is evidence for the big bang theory or similar theories, there is evidence for most theories else how could they have come about aside from random guess work...

 

There is evidence that agrees with the predictions of a scientific theory, as with most universal laws. But there is no evidence that necessarily proves that the theory is a unique description of the big bang event. i.e. look at the argument between physicists and string theorists.

And I am using some key logical words here so I hope you are understanding what I am saying.

---------- Post added 5th Feb 2011 at 08:22 PM ----------

Anyway what i am trying to express is do evidence provide both necessary and sufficient proofs to this age old question?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_and_only_if

 

Well I completely understand this approach to atheism which is what my own position is. But, in being purely and pedantically and semantically accurate in the position the label "atheist" means different things to different people. There are multiple degrees of non-belief but I think the fundamental commonality is that we all believe that the scientific method will lead to answers, and religious suppression of scientific efforts or progress is undesirable.

 

The problem that many people have with religion is that they have been seen as evil because of the few extremists.

Yes, humans have done terrible things in the name of religion, but religion has also helped many people through out history. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the first mathematicians were Muslim and were inspired because their religion tells them to acquire knowledge.

I'm not saying that you should be religious or not. To each its own, but it seems that you are putting ALL religion people in tho this single box whose "opinions of the world and life and sexuality and freedom and truth and science and all those things which i hold dear." which is simply not true for EVERY religious person out there.

Don't be religious, thats fine, but try not to stereotype this large group of people into one simple definition. Also, its curious that people still try to state a difference between religion and science when we have so many scientists right now that are able to balance both things in their lives.

Just my 2 cents.

 

So, you would lose respect immediately if someone has a religion? Doesn't matter how smart, nice or good of a person they are? Just because they are religious they are not worthy of your consideration?

That' really sad. Considering that if you change the word "religious" for "gay" you get what homophobes think about us.

What about paganism or any other small religion out there that doesn't follow any religious text at all? Or any type of "hybrid-religion" that people might have?

You are certainly allowed to have your own opinions, but you are being extremely rude to everyone that is religious.

 

I think there is a reason why a young person can make up his mind given the circumstances he is in, and no you can't substitute the word gay for religious in that context, because religion is a choice, being gay is not.

In terms of attitude toward finding answers, there is definitively the right way and the wrong way. The right way when you don't know the answer to a question is to go and find answers, and until you have found the answer that you can explain and prove from step 1 to step N, you will only acknowledge and/or make conclusions about what you have discovered thus far. This is why I personally believe that I will not say whether there is a creator or not.

The wrong way to approach the solution is to jump from step I to step J without any critical thought of your own. You may derive this from a feel-good perspective, and if considering you are in need of a feel-good solution to your problems in the world, this is understandable. But again, this is a choice that I think every person will make in their life time, whether to just set your mind free and go with the whims and the guilty pleasures of believing in a God, or whether to set your mind free and go with the whims and the guilty pleasures of assuredly denying the existence of God. Notice that I used the same phrase twice for both situations again.

 

I was actually referring to the idea that homophobes do believe that being gay is a choice and that many of them don't even want to listen to reason because why would they ever listen to someone that is gay or gay-friendly?

This is exactly what I was referring to. You don't even know me, yet you try to fit me into this stereotype thinking that I'm religious when in fact I don't follow any religion.

All I said was that he was being rude to others with his statements.

Again, I don't mind what other people believe in. That's their life and I don't think there is a right or wrong answer for it. I just can't fathom the idea of someone losing respect for another person JUST because they are religious.

 

No I actually did not think you were religious.

And the point I was making to you is that a lot of people his age think they know all of the world and have made some final conclusions. He will probably look at his own attitude in 10 years and laugh at himself.

 

My apologies then. I misunderstood what you were saying

 

IMO, if there was a creator, where the heck did he come from? This 'everpresent, always been there' stuff doesn't fly in my mind. If our world is complex, he must be pretty complex as well... A God is not feasible if you cannot explain where he came from. Also, no offense to any religious people. xD It is just my belief. Also, though I do not agree with religion, I have met very intelligent religious people. I just choose not to discuss belief because we are too stubborn to move in either one of our beliefs.

 

I don't mind people being relious but I hate it when they try and force it down my throat and over the population, As far as I am concerned they can go shove it were the sun don't shine.