Are We Any Better Than "them?"

[ped]

Aaaand it's extremely unpopular viewpoint time!

 

Judging by some of the attitudes I see around here from time to time, I highly doubt that we're any more "enlightened" than the Christians. It's hard to consider someone enlightened when the most you see from them is a lot of hateful, bitter name-calling, contempt, and... generally... the exact same attitudes the fundies give us.

 

It certainly doesn't help to see some people take things from "Ex-Christian" to "Rabidly Anti-anything even REMOTELY religious to the point of hatefully bashing anyone who has any spiritual beliefs whatsoever"

 

Note: I'm not claiming that all or even most folks around here engage in such disgraceful and stereotypically Fundie behaviour... But it's enough to seriously taint my perception of this ex-Christian community.

 

How are we supposed to claim to be better than them, when so many of us act just like them? If not worse? It's like some people swapped one spiteful soapbox for another, and the only difference between the things they're saying now, and the things they said before, is a distinct lack of invocations of God and Jesus. Unless, of course, they're raving about how we need to ban any mention of any deity in any aspect of daily life.

 

Because, of course, it's okay to force your viewpoint on someone else if you're doing it for their betterment! Oh, wait, where have I heard that before....?

its late night for me so im going to ramble a bit...my perception would at least be slightly different tomorrow i bet. so i dont want a hostile arguement, telling me i cant spell and point out my stupidity, etc....

 

i understand where you're coming from.

for me personally i think that i only get anti-non athiest about political issues where, in my opinion its justified to be hateful and out raged for the circumstance. i excerise new age-ish beliefs now and again but in no way am i dogmatic and fanatically attached to them. i simply exercise the concepts. but you're right some people here SOMETIMES seem to have lost their deep thought and SEEM to have become simply the other side of the same coin. i think that christianity and many other religions can and do teach universal truths. we gotta realize that just because the fundimentals of the beliefs are, in FACT complete nonsense, they can still teach you something real that goes beyond the faith shit. and atleast they're worth a philosphical pondering.

when i really start thinking about what this jesus fellow/things said it becomes clear that "fundies" are totally fucked up. they behave and hold dogma that is in no way realated to the teachings of christ. we should hate churches more than the bible. you understand what i mean by that? its kinda the same paradox as an american patriot nowadays. usually the more someone says they love america and god bless america and flags flags flags everywhere around them, the more their actions are anti-america ideals.

to truely embrace the metaphor of "god" is the same for everyone regardless of your blindness to realize it. people are just rationalizing the same universal things no matter your definition. be it a figment of the imagination, a bible god, a misunderstanding of the super ego, or an infitile mother/security complex. to really embrace christianity or others truely needs to be an internal persuit. priests that molest and true laymen protestants all behave as if they are real monks...they're not. they have psychological issues, not a true desire to lead a spiritual life. thats why their actions always end up to be infinitly hypocritical. if we got rid of all the christian wanna bes we would end up with a 5 maybe 6 digit number of christians world wide..the very ones who arent quik to label themselves christians and whom never get publicity.

i do end up hating these laymen authorities, i think christianty has been turned into or is being used as a propaganda machine that has taken over the lives of people that are, in a cognitive evolutionary sense no better or worse for it. those laymen that claim they are the choosen spiritual leaders that we love to hate would latch on to any belief if it weren't for christianity. if they (usually the patriots i explained above) were raised in the middle east or north africa they would be plotting to bomb america right now....and vice versa. they're an insult to christs teachings. (from what little ive read or remember it was hippy-ish love all anti war pacifistic uber-liberal) am i wrong?

all this is intuitive to all of us, i think. and thats why we really get outraged when not even the government is protecting religious freedom (in my book it should be called intellectual or philisophical freedom to clear up confusion). and in fact the government is part of the same thing that we need legislative protection against. and so people become helpless and fall into the very things we were raging against...similar to the new generation of "anti rascists (wanna-bes)",they have made the civil rights movement of anti-racism and discrimination into and a counter racistist stance (i.e. they arent agaisnt racisim as much as they are proud blacks raging against the white man, all while proclaiming thy're simply ant-racism). and neo-feminism is often turned into out right disrespect for men instead of sexual equality.

[Guest tigg13]

I've got a problem with the question "Are we better than them?", itself.

 

Being "better" than someone else is a bigoted and prejudicial idea and, along with guilt and fear, are part of the basic building blocks of fundamentalism.

 

If one believes that they have been chosen by god for eternal salvation then, by definition they must be better than everyone who has not been saved. Hence, christians have this need to be self-righteous and superior - even tho they're not.

 

My goal has never been to show that I'm better than anyone - just that they aren't any better than me.

 

The worst thing we could do, in my opinion, is to censor our insults, put downs and bad behavior. As long as the responses are honest (and/or entertaining) they need to be expressed. Because, as soon we start letting them control how we communicate we will no longer be communicating.

[Guest Emerson]

Right good point tigg. I don't think I'm better than anyone or that we're better than "them." Frankly I think that we are making our decisions on evidence rather than superstition, but in a way its great to have this forum to be silly and to just vent.