Does anybody else feel sorry for religious people?

[IanHulett]

I went to church on sunday, and I felt sorry for everybody there, because all I could think of was that they were brainwashed, and were giving their money away for nothing, and that the elders wasted their entire life, and the middle aged people are wasting their life, and they're oppressing themselves, etc. I just feel so sorry for these people.

Fortunately, my girlfriend, and the pastor knows I'm an atheist, but that's it. Nobody else at church knows.

Does anybody else feel sorry for religious people?

[Norman Humann]

Not really. They fell for it.

I feel bad that there is so much time and money being wasted, though.

[FatAndFaithless]

Do you still go to church because of family pressures?

[IanHulett]

Do you still go to church because of family pressures?

Nah. I go to Church so that I can be with my Girlfriend. I just don't participate in any of the rituals, such as communion, prayer, that kind of stuff.

[Tonus]

If they're not being forced into it, no. They have the option to question it and come to a conclusion and live with that.

[vorlon13]

I don't feel sorry for the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Miscavige (Scientology), Joe Smith, etc.

On the rare occasion when one of the charlatans is set upon by a mob wielding pitchforks and torches, I always root for the mob.

I'd sure like to see Pat Robertsons intestines fall out live on TV . . .

[Mister Agenda]

I don't blame religious people for being religious. Almost all of them were indoctrinated into it at an age when we're programmed by nature (usually) to accept what our parents and elders tell us uncritically. Everybody involved thinks they're doing the right thing. And it's hard to shake what was taught to you that young, and often 'confirmed' by religious experiences. Not to mention, half of them are below average intelligence-wise, and it might be too high an expectation to figure they'll think their way out on their own. There are worse things to be than religious, and at least some of that money and time goes to helping people, so it's not entirely down the drain. I'm pretty sure some people are wired with a predisposition to believe fantastic things, and that's also not their fault.

So I do feel a little sorry for them, the degree of which is relative to how far in they are, but there are plenty of people for whom I feel way more sorry.

[vorlon13]

Members of the flock out agitating for their wacky religious strictures to be enacted into secular law don't get any sympathy from me either.

[polar bear]

I don't feel sorry for them. Most of them find answers to questions they have at the time. I do however,feel sorry for them when they ask the right questions and get ridiculed for asking honest questions.

[abaris]

I always think along the lines of the old proverb: See you, wouldn't want to be you.

Sorry is the wrong word. I always shudder to think what must be going on in the heads of these people. How their lives must look, the guilt trips they are constantly on.