I actually enjoy it more now than I did when I was Christian, but I think it’s a completely different experience. The wasted time is when I tried so hard to reconcile what I’d been taught in church with what I knew to be true about human nature, and what I knew to be true about history. I spent so much time trying to justify beliefs that were honestly just ridiculous. But I was desperate to make it all make sense. And I know I’m no great theologian but I was obsessed and felt like you have to be obsessed to prove to God that you’re worthy. And I wanted to be prepared when challenged. I felt like argument from non-Christians was an assault on my faith sent straight from Satan himself.
See? Ridiculous. But I wanted to believe it because I was so desperate for the comfort of knowing someone out there is making sure I’m safe and one day I’d be back with my family again.
I feel like that time could have been better spent learning about other things in life, and I know it’s true because I am enjoying it so much more now. And enjoyment is what it’s all about!
Ah fuck it. Cast them all you want and screw 'em if they consider it arrogant. Learning is but a series of gathering of information and rejecting what you disagree with. You think it’s a waste of your time to study religion. I think it’s a waste of time to study astrology or Reiki healing. It’s all the same to me.
When I first came to this board I was a Creationist Christian. I wasn’t a young earther, but I fully believed Eve ate a piece of fruit from the tree God told her not to, and that’s why we suffer in the world. I actually taught this to my child when she was little, and I made sure she was aware of Hell too. And I regret it more than anything in my life. How is it arrogant to say this was time wasted? I know you said you were more liberal but it sounds like you tried the same thing I tried; to justify what you were told with what you knew to be true and the two were not meshing together. It’s painful and frustrating and you look back and think it really was such a waste, the whole struggle was a waste of time I could have spent dancing or flying a kite or just watching the world.
There are millions of highly intelligent people at varying and changing stages of belief. You would think that the correlation between intelligence and self awareness would be more distinct.
Thanks for the pseudo-insult by the way, but I already clarified the haughty tone of the OP earlier in the thread.
I’m still trying to figure out why I’d want to be living among the stars. It’s cold and generally hostile out there, and we’ve got one hell of an Earth!
Try considering Jesus not as a divine figure but as an ethicist. The radical pacifism expressed in the phrase “Turn the other cheek” is something that I, an avowed agnostic, have always found moving. The Parable of the Good Samaritan* is a powerful and dramatic statement of the interconnectedness and interdependency of mankind, truer today than it was when Jesus said it. Yeshua of Nazareth rightly ranks among the great ethicists of all time. Or, if you prefer art to ethics, you’ve got one hell of a command of a beautiful work of poetry and metaphor, one that is probably more influential than any other in our Western society. That’s valuable too. Finally, you’ve probably learned how to thinking deeply and critically about a text, which is likewise a valuable skill. It’s not time wasted.
*And I promise, I like the Bible even outside of the Sermon on the Mount.
Agreed and agreed. There are wonderful wisdom stories in the bible and Jesus was a great ergo ethicist. But by acknowledging the Jesus is not divine I can safely say there is a bunch of the bible that is vile.
But you’re still coming across that way. I’m a theist. I do NOT consider myself a “deluded sky-fairy worshipper”, and I’m tired hearing the phrase on this board.
Haughty was when I was saying I was more intelligent than most, something that was silly to say. But if you believe something that goes against all evidence, that qualifies you as deluded. The “sky-fairy” thing was out of line because I don’t know who you worship. You may genuflect before Poseidon, who is obviously a sea-fairy.
Yes. Exactly. Very well stated. My parents have spent their whole lives doing this: making elaborate attempts to reconcile rational thought with religious indoctrination. Sometimes I feel like the main reason they go to church is that being in that environment helps prevent reason from beating faith in the contest for their beliefs.
I don’t really feel that I “worship” a god so much as I just believe in one. You may see me as “deluded”, fine. (It’s more that I feel that there’s something out there, not any one such religion. I consider myself a “vague theist”)
But lately I’ve been getting really, REALLY irritated at the “deluded sky-fairy believer” comments that have been going around. Because quite honestly, I’ve never given a shit what people believe, as long as they’re respective for the beliefs, or non-beliefs of others. (You can worship an old sweat-sock, for all I care!)
Just as much as atheists hate being told they’re just angry at god, believers hate being told they’re just deluded. You see? Mutual respect for beliefs (or non-beliefs). Religious beliefs are, in my opinion, a very personal thing. Religion isn’t inherantly good or bad. Some people are motivated by it to do good, others to do evil. So for every Jerry Falwell, David Koresh, Osama Bin Laden, you’ll have a Gandhi, an Oscar Romero, or a Marin Luther King. You can’t say that it’s all good or all bad. It just is.
And studying religion IS a very useful tool, because it is such a huge influence in our lives – humanity, philosophy, history, etc.
