It's really just a matter of choice, no?
So, no matter how much evidence to the improbability of god's existence we present to theists, they choose to believe in some sort of invisible sky monkey.
If we leave them be, why can't they leave us be?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dustin on -
I don't fight religious beliefs because they let us / do not let us be. I fight it because they still won't refrain from psychological child abuse.
It should be illegal to tell your child you will burn in hell if you don't do x.
It should be illegal to tell your child they were born sinful - and will remain that way.
It should be illegal to mutilate the genitals of a child.
It's a form of child abuse - and I will remain active until I die because of this.
But my question would be - is it MY right / left or THEIR right / left - Cause you know - If I choose my left it would be their right. ; /
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Permalink Reply by Michael Sizer-Watt on -
Well I don't believe in doxastic voluntarism, which is the theory that we choose what we believe. I can't choose to believe my cats are monkeys and I can't choose to be convinced by theology. I know though that we're very succeptible to believing thing we'd prefer to be true, and that's where theits seem to know no boundaries.
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Permalink Reply by Monica Salcedo (Monicks) on -
I think it is a matter of choice for believers, not for us.
Had I been able to choose, I would have chosen to believe, just because it would have made my mother happy.
Conversely, believers choose to not listen, to not read and to not reason.
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Permalink Reply by Bill on -
Yes, you can choose any false belief you want, but there is only one reality. If you choose reality, you don't have a choice, you have to take it as it is. Not that you can't change the future, mind you!
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Permalink Reply by Dave G on -
Because their particular fantasy includes as a prime tenet the command to not only not leave other people alone, but to change people to believe in the same myths that they do, by force if need be.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Ulean Breedlove on -
I wish I knew the answer to this question.
My sister recently converted to Pentecostal. Now this is her words to me "You being an ex-christian you know how important it is to us that we share our new found love. It can not possibly be as insulting to you,
for me to talk to you about my god as it is for you to tell me he is
just a figment of my imagination!"I shit you not she really said this! She was never really all that religious, though we both grew up in a church, we moved in with my mother when I was around 12 she was about 7, due to my grandmothers health
problems, so she kind of left the church scene behind then. Then one day
she has a kid and become a holly roller, tongue who knows it all and can't even the 23rd psalm..As I have said a million times, if we walked into their churches and started preaching evolution over their preachers we would go to jail, If we walked on to one of their forums and started debunking them there
they would kick us out. Why they feel the need to be here I have no
idea..
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Permalink Reply by Jason D. Johnson on -
Because our reality reflects their lie back onto them. They can't stand knowing that we MAY be right, cuz if we are, their whole lives are a lie....at least that's how my wife felt. Also, theists feel a need to expand and include everyone because deep down inside, they are too afraid to question and feel more secure when no one else around them questions. When some one does question..... it's on like motherfuckin' donkey-kong! They just flip their shit and have to debate, which usually lasts all of 5 whole entire seconds until they are destroyed by one of us... No. They will never leave us alone. Look how Christianity DEVOURED nearly every pagan and pre-christian faith on the planet. It was either convert to Christianity or face genocide. Christmas is a perfect example....all of the holiday's facets are devoured traditions from old pagan faiths. Christianity particularly gives people the delusion that they will not cease to exist after death. People cannot accept this, emotionally. So they will eat up the lies like honey and wash down it down with the morning dew of ignorance. Then they will continuously regurgitate it and force it down your throat, especially when you are a threat to expose their faith (and their lives) as lies.
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Permalink Reply by Jarrod Payne on -
I agree with Jason. I read a paper recently which examined the problem of interreligion violence (which is similar to incessant preaching in many ways). Their analysis was interesting. They begin with the idea that religion exists because we all face the existential crisis of death. In order to remove this crisis religions promise everlasting life. People of other religions, and even more so atheists, contradict that worldview thereby forcing them to unconsciously confront thier own mortality. This re-emergence of the existential crisis coupled with the human tendency to look to other members of their group for information to see if they are right, means that religious people will try to convert since this removes the dissonance between us and them while also providing more people who agree with their worldview. This makes them even more "right" and so validates their beliefs.
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Permalink Reply by Matt on -
The answer to that, lies in social psychology. It bothers these religious fanatics deeply that people think differently then they do (remember, most religious people have been either brainwashed from birth, or have joined out of loneliness, peer-pressure (sense of belonging), or they are simply LOST); these religious people for the most part are weak-minded, spineless hypocrites... religion attracts the worst types of people. Knowing this, then, it becomes easy to figure out why they wish to spread religious convictions so badly:
1) they are extremely insecure about the fact that someone may think about something differently, and are bigoted assholes (think herd-behavior and in-group/out-group behavior).
2) manipulative people tend to use religion (think of the pope, who used to be part of the Hitler Youth) as a safe-haven, to allow them to get away with their acts of sedition (think child molestation); they quickly realize it affords them control over weak-minded fools, and once in power, THEY ARE UNTOUCHABLE. and then they preach for the spread of religion to control MORE PEOPLE.
3) lastly, you have the weak-minded fools. These people are psychologically conditioned to "believe" that they will be doing the world "good" by spreading religion (every sunday, in church, they hear about how you must spread the "The Love of Christ" to all of God's children). So, in order to feel like they are selfless (I love how religious people are the first to vocalize how selfless they are) and that they are "good", they proselytize their ideals. But, deep down, most of these people, I think, have an enumeration of doubts; they are just too weak to question, because they face ridicule by their peers (remember when I mentioned in-group/out-group behavior?).
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Permalink Reply by Shine on -
Hmm...I don't know if belief is a matter of choice. However, perhaps I am just projecting my own inability to consciously direct my beliefs onto others for whom it is a possibility.
Letting go of any deep-seated belief in the face of new information is an uncomfortable and frightening experience. Maybe the choice is that theists choose to allow fear to dictate their beliefs rather than rational evaluation of information?
Eek, sorry for the rambling derailment that amounted to little more than semantic jibberjabber, lol.
But maybe the fear that motivates theists to cling to belief is also the driving force in their continued persistence of atheists/heretics/heathens/whatever the flavor-of-the-century dictates. Nothing is more uncomfortable than being confronted with someone who has overcome or rejected things that you are afraid to live without.
It's like when someone quits drinking and forces (unintentionally or otherwise) other alcoholics to confront their own addiction.
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Permalink Reply by Bill on
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I side with those who think belief is not really a matter of choice. You don't choose to become an atheist, it's just a matter of learning how things work. It's exactly like learning that babies come from sex. Once you learn that, you have no choice in discarding the stork theory.
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