(February 5, 2018 at 2:53 am)Abaddon_ire Wrote:(February 4, 2018 at 12:48 am)Jeezypete Wrote: Whenever a religious debate begins to happen (something I fervently try to avoid) I tend to act with empathy and compassion. I ask them to explain how god (or gods) have helped them. What void they fill or what obstacle they help them overcome. I never ask for them to defend themselves or debate logic. It’s always been my view that religion has never been about a debate of logic, but a debate of survival. People have religion often because it helps them get by either it be work or relationships. Using logic to debate with a religious person often doesn’t work because their arguments are not based on it, but rather a primal need to get by. When cornered about why I generally don’t subcribe to a religion (it happens from time to time) I simply say that “it’s ok to not know, and it’s ok to be afraid.” I then proceed to tell them this is what I tell myself when faced with the infinite black that stares back at all of us from time to time and it helps me get by. I try to be honest, friendly, and forgiving. I don’t succeed all time but it’s made my voyage through life a whole lot better.
That might work, except that the religious will not extend that very courtesy to you or anyone else. My god is a god of unconditional lurve, they say. But they also want you dead.
The entire point of the musing was that it does work with ordinary every day blue collar religious people. The post is literally my real life experience. Nobody who’s remotely sane wants death. Only the insane, which do exist but they would most likely be unhinged without religion anyway. My postulation is that religion doesn’t make you mean, fear does. If you tame the fear you tame the fervor.
