How do you respond to this statement?

[Full Circle]

"There are many questions we wont have answers to."
Or
"I have faith that god sees the bigger plan".

I'm sick of hearing these when talking to religious people. What is the best response to these statements?

There are many questions we don't have answers to - but it is extremely difficult to identify those that we will never have answers to. What must be avoided at all costs, however, is the idea that the answer to any question we don't have an answer to, is God.

This is "God of the cracks" and it has a very poor track record historically.

As for Good seeing the bigger plan - what plan? Why should there be a plan?

I like your terminology better than the original "God of the Gaps"

I picture god inside a plumbers butt crack trying to crawl out.

[wandering soul]

Here's the thing. Responding to friends and acquaintances in a forum like this is a very different thing from talking with your relatives. If you do, in fact love and care for your relatives, you don't want to be constantly baiting them, challenging them, insulting them, being snide and "clever" as can be done in other situations where you don't really care how the other person responds. You have to go on living with your relatives unless you want to divorce them all. I suspect that Stan wants to keep his family.

So (1) understand that they think differently from you - I mean really a different set of cognitive functions. You don't think like they do and they can't think like you do. Once you accept that there is a basic cognitive difference it might help you simply ignore their statements. (2) give up trying to get them to see the rationality of your views. It's not going to happen. Accepting the reality of the situation will help take away a lot of the frustration you feel. (3) If they bring up subjects to try and convert you - be humorous, light, and change the subject. If they persist appeal to their family love, be honest and just tell them that it really makes you feel rejected by the family when they talk this way. They will feel bad and let you change the subject. (4) initiate conversations yourself on every other innocent topic you know will not get you trapped in their cosmic world view. By taking control of your conversations and steering them away from difficult topics you will feel much better. (5) when you overhear them saying things to one another that make your head spin, walk away to where you can't hear them and start up a conversation that will make you feel better - sports or something.

I know all of this works even though it is hard. I have struggled with a very very totally Christian family and extended family that I love for 63 years. It's hard. You have to learn to protect your soul from within, by the things you tell yourself. Do not fill your mind with all the things you disagree with them about; fill it with the things you love about them and can agree with them about. The Tao, the natural flow of life, can give you a mental state of equanimity in turbulent waters.

[CleanShavenJesus]

Why talk to religious people?

Talking to religious people about their cosmic beliefs is the humane thing to do. Unless you think atheism is something you must keep secret and all for yourself, because you are "special" and for the "few", which i can't relate to.

Well, it's in my opinion that religious beliefs should be kept to one's self. That includes atheism. In real life, it's rare I ever discuss religion with anybody because it's nobody's business.

[NoraBrimstone]

How would I respond? Welll...

"There are many questions we wont have answers to."

"So? That doesn't mean you should fill the gaps with whatever crap turns you on."

"I have faith that god sees the bigger plan".

"And I have faith that you're a dumbfuck cuntrag."

[Stan]

Talking to religious people about their cosmic beliefs is the humane thing to do. Unless you think atheism is something you must keep secret and all for yourself, because you are "special" and for the "few", which i can't relate to.

Well, it's in my opinion that religious beliefs should be kept to one's self. That includes atheism. In real life, it's rare I ever discuss religion with anybody because it's nobody's business.

Religious beliefs shouldnt be kept to yourself, since the religious people are the ones usually in places of power. If they were kept a "secret" then we'd still be in the medieval ages and by saying that you also dissaprove the actions of great atheists, like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens etc, whom only trying/tried to achieve is human progress and scepticism.

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize" -Voltaire

[Whateverist]

I don't avoid the subject of religion with my super christian families. However, I approach it from a christian viewpoint. They think I am a christian. So when I ask a question they can't answer, I file it away. One day all of these little questions they can't answer will come in handy for something.

I hadn't realized you were so deep under cover. But then you also believe in something 'more', or do I have you confused with someone else here? (Don't worry, I believe in weird shit too, really weird shit. I just don't call it knowledge, push it on others or place it above everything else I believe.)

[Rahul]

(Don't worry, I believe in weird shit too, really weird shit. I just don't call it knowledge, push it on others or place it above everything else I believe.)

Well now I'm all curious and shit.

[Whateverist]

(Don't worry, I believe in weird shit too, really weird shit. I just don't call it knowledge, push it on others or place it above everything else I believe.)

Well now I'm all curious and shit.

Do you know the secret handshake?

[Rahul]

Do you know the secret handshake?

...

No.

No... I don't.

[Whateverist]

Do you know the secret handshake?

...

No.

No... I don't.

Well, since idle curiosity is a terrible thing to waste, I'll tell you anyway. (Mum's the word though.)

Basically I just think what we take ourselves to be is wrong headed. I think our conscious minds play a subsidiary role in who we really are. We -our conscious minds- are an evolutionary adaption which makes us capable of stepping back and really questioning the motives and intentions of others. Add language and this conscious mind convinces itself it owns the joint. In fact we are more, and the more that we are in some respects is "other" to our conscious minds. The other within is a psychological fact that is not up to my conscious opinion nor my conscious assessment of what it would be best for me to believe. That creates the possibility of such unfortunate outcomes as estrangement from self and, more trivially, Freudian slips. But such a schema also makes coherent such ideas as integration and fulfillment. I'm fine with calling this aspect of myself "soul" even though I don't think it is anything other than something my brain is doing and thus is every bit as mortal as my body. Weird, huh?