(June 5, 2015 at 4:42 pm)Losty Wrote: ... I don't understand why religious people cannot have their beliefs and keep them to themselves.
...
It is part of Christianity (at least mainstream Christianity) to go out into the world and try to convert others. So it is a built-in part of the religion to bother others and try to get them to be Christians, too.
Here are a few Biblical references (just read the three verses from Matthew 28 if you don't want to read them all, and notice verse 20, where they are to get everyone to obey all of the commands of God):
Matthew 28:
18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Mark 16:
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Luke 24:
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Acts 1:
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Colossians 1:
27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
There are likely more such verses, but that is more than enough.
So, even if a particular Christian is not, by inclination, wanting to bother the neighbors, Jesus and other Bible personages have commanded them to do so.
It is their sacred duty to convert you, and get you to follow God's word. So they are obnoxious assholes not necessarily from personal inclination, but from divine command.
Christianity is not the only religion that has such commands, but I am less familiar with other sacred texts and won't bother with any support for that. But if you think about it a bit, obviously a religion that has such commands will tend to be more widespread than one in which the members are instructed to keep it to themselves. So I would hazard a guess that any really common religion has similar commands to what is found in the Bible for spreading the religion.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
