C
1
B Ii
Q1: D, though there’s a bit of “C” in there as well.
My family, as a rule, didn’t outright say that other religions were wrong (though they did, on occasion, speak unfavorably about the religion practiced by Jehovah’s Witnesses, not the least because a few of my relatives defected to that side), but I definitely got the sense that they felt that their way was the only way.
And it seems to me that it’s less that they were anti-science than that they were pro-Bible (they never interfered with my schooling–and I went to all public schools and got grilled whenever I got a “B” instead of an “A”). I always tell people that one of the mantras in my family is this: God said it, I believe, that settles it. Of course, this was trotted out solely because I, in my adolescent and contrarian hard-headed ways, tended–and only to a point b/c they did have me gripped up for awhile–to be one of those “WTF?!” kind of people WRT to the Bible and religion (ex: If the Bible says that Jesus is the only way to heaven, what about people who aren’t Christian and have never heard of Christianity, God, and Jesus?), and I apparently didn’t have the sense to keep my questions to myself.
Homosexuality was a no-no (good, good times for me while coming to terms with being gay), though my mother, whenever I asked her about her beliefs re abortion, always said that that was between a woman and her conscience.
But fundamentalist? Pretty much. Scion of a rural South Carolina family here.
Q2: ii, though there’s a bit of i in there.
In a perfect world, I’d be cool with i. Y’know, you let me do my thing, I’ll let you do your thing, and no one gets hurt. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world, and as much as I admire the good that religion has done (charity, movements for justice, the arts–I mean, really, I couldn’t imagine a world without the requia of Mozart and Verdi, or Bach’s B Minor Mass), it seems to me that religion, through the ages, has done much, much, **much ** more harm that it has good. And it’s still going strong. (Anti-gay legislation, anyone? Israel/Palestine, anyone? Etc., etc., anyone?). So, yeah, if religion were eradicated today, I wouldn’t miss it. Let folks find something that’s *really * worth fighting, hating, and killing each over.
And I say this as a kippah (yarmulke)-wearing, putatively practicing liberal Jew. The thing is, my Judaism is not a religion of unseen hands and celestial wrath (as another Doper–sorry, but I can’t remember who–has in his cool sig: no gods, no monsters). As it is conventionally understood, it is a religion (How else am I supposed to explain it when I fill out hospital forms?), but for me, it’s an ethical roadmap. True, I could strive to be ethical outside the confines of Judaism–and I’d do just fine–but this just happens to be the way that I’ve been “called” (not by “god,” mind you) to interact with the Universe and with other life on the planet.
So…yeah, that’s it. BTW, pseudotriton ruber ruber, I like this poll.
B, I
Catholic, Dad ushered in church till he died, but probably more a social thing than hardcore belief. Mom went only occasionally. I stopped at age 14 except for Midnight Mass at my high school at Xmas (again, more social than anything else).
While I acknowledge that a lot of terrible things have been done in the name of God/religion, I agree with the viewpoint that it is not inherent in the concept of religion. I feel that if someone needs their religious belief for strength or comfort or whatever, that is their right. It only bugs me when someone tries to make a religious principle the law (abortion, gay marriage, school prayer). I have many friends who follow one faith or another; I respect their rights, and they respect mine.
A, somewhere between I and II.
My mother explicitly taught me of the evils of religion when I was young. She’d be about (A/B, II). My dad (B, I) grew up in the typical military family, and they stopped bothering with finding a new church after every move. His parents didn’t see much point in organized religion.
Personally, I don’t have any problems with religious individuals, as long as they don’t give me excess crap about my beliefs. At the same time, I sort of think of religion as an outdated mode of thought. Various religions have basically formed the base for all pre-industrial societies, and have had many positive and negative consequences. Ideally, IMHO, religion should be left to fade and be replaced by secular and rational institutions.
(This post brought to you by Firefox Session Restore and a bumped power cable :smack: )
B. Mild religious. Very mild. I went to Hebrew School mostly because the scarce Saturday slots at our temple for bar mitzvahs were reserved for Hebrew School students, and my father wanted me to have a big bar mitzvah - mostly so he could invite people. We had no real traditions before this. He grew up observant, but both is parents were dead long before this happened, and my maternal grandfather was probably an atheist
Again, thanks for all the replies, Here’s what we’ve got. I fudged the answers to fit in the categories a little bit. For those who lean towards II only when others try to impose their beliefs on you, I put you in the I camp for the most part. No one’s too positive or tolerant of other’s beliefs when said others are threatening one with damnation.
AI: 12 AII: 5
BI: 13 BII: 6
CI: 12 CII: 6
DI: 5 DII: 2
This wasn’t what I was expecting. I was sure the C’s and D’s would weigh more heavily towards II and the A’s and B’s toward I. Instead the percentages appear constant regardless of upbringing. Interesting.
I got curious about this because my best friend was raised in a pretty fundamentalist household and hates religion, once even getting enraged when I drank a trappist beer. Off religion she’s a perfectly reasonable person. I was raised by atheists and am pretty OK with religion as long as it stays a private matter. I thought there’d be a correlation between how strict an atheist’s religious upbringing was and how militant the’re atheism is. This unscientific poll says otherwise.
I probably should have been less wordy in my questions. What can I say, it’s my first poll.
Toss me in the DI category. My mom dragged us to church twice on Sundays, bible study on Wednesdays, and prayer meetings whenever they were held. Essentially, our entire social life revolved around church. When my brother and his friends had the NERVE to play Dungeons and Dragons in the house, she had someone come in to annoint the house with olive oil to try to cast out the demons they must have accidentally conjured while playing that evil, evil game. :rolleyes: Our church believed in faith healing, speaking in tongues, the whole nine yards.
Anyhow, religion is just fine (for other people). I’ve never had anyone get in my face about it. They probably can tell that I’m pretty much a lost cause.
Went to church more regularly when I was younger. When I hit High School age, we started attending less frequently. (And at some point I stopped attending altogether.) Before I stopped believing, I attended summer camps for my sect. (And was very seriously considering becoming first a camp counselor, and eventualy a minister.)
So, I guess that’s B, leaning a bit towards C, but mostly B.
I hate, hate, hate the things done in religion’s name that cause harm to others. The blank look in the eyes of followers when they mindlessly obey their sheppard sickens me to the core.
OTOH, people have, in the name of religion, attempted to help their fellow man. I don’t give a rat’s ass who you believe in if you’re in a soup kitchen dishin’ out food to those who need it.
I see religion as a by product of humanity’s current step on the evolutionary ladder. It is no better than the people who preach it, and no worse than them, either. The chief danger of religion is it’s ability to get everyone on the same page. When clergy use the pulpit to espouse their views, there is a natural human dendancy to want to follow. This is a very effective means of meme-transference. Preaching hate, intolerance, and ignorance is appearently quite effective.
I don’t particularly like your two choices for the second question. I think the world would be a better place if all humans could better analyze what their leaders (both spiritual and secular) are telling them, and I believe that this would lead to the erradication of religion, but I understand that religion has played a major role in shaping the world around us.
And, here, I was just reading about how irrationality is the hallmark of religious belief.
(You’ld think the religious folks could at least catch a break for the one truly marvelous contribution they have made to human history.)
I feel a little bad about bringing her up. She’s really a good person. She works with children with learning disabilities and psychological problems, and she’s very generous and friendly. It’s just that her messed up childhood left her with a bunch of issues, including a severe bug up her hind end about religion.
All to often the help offered is a means to an end. That’s the problem w/ this “faith based initiative” and public support of parochial schools.
I dabbled w/ religion as a young man, my first wife was Catholic, so I had to agree to take “instruction”, before I was “permitted” to be married in their church. Her family, own a popular, old restuarant and bar and they were an important part of the community and the church. My MIL once asked me to do her a special favor, w/ the implication that this was a family thing, to be kept confidential. She had me deliver, discretely, a couple cases of beer and several bottles of wine to the nunnery. While not an earth shaking revelation, it did strike me as extremely hypocritical. After our marriage, we began receiving premarked envelops each month, designation our financial obligation to the church. This was when I was 21 and still on the fence about many things in my life, including religion. Several years later, when my marriage was quite rocky, I was summoned from work (in the miltary) to report to the chaplins office. I went, fearing the worst, only to be given a lecture on my responsibilities as a husband, by a priest, who was also a Navy commander. While I felt a moral obligation to respect a priest and a legal obligation to respect a senior Naval officer, I, told him he had no right meddling in my personal life and walked out of his office.
I consider myself to be an agnostic, rather than an atheist. I came to my current conclusions, after much observation and thought, from two different directions. Of lesser importance is the hypocracy and deception of organized religion, but that did help w/ the rational rejection of man’s many explanations of a diety/dieties and the ultimate arrival at faith to support the entire concept.
Those first two paragraphs above are quoted from JustAnotherGeek’s previous post, sorry I didn’t make that clear.
B, II.
The B bit comes from school. In Northern Ireland primary and secondary schools are quite often one religion only and I started off in a RC primary school. Prayers four times a day at least (morning, before and after lunch and before hometime) regular visits from a priest and frowns upon any questions raised. My parents weren’t terribly devout, mass was only on Sunday and not every week either.
A i
1: D
As a child I went to church three times a week. Period. No excuses, no misses. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Until age 11 I was allowed to bring a christian book to church to read during the sermon, but after that I was forced to listen. I was constantly forced to memorize scripture and quizzed on it regularly. That was what we did on long car trips- memorize and recite scripture. My sister was a missionary in Papua New Guinea and, until medical problems forced her to quit, Africa.
2: 1.5. Depends on the religion and the attitude of the practitioner.
My grand-uncle returned recently from Papua New Guinea where he was a missionary, not entirely convinced he was on the right team.
A, 1.
Although I would lean more towards “agnosticism” rather than atheism.
Between B & C on the first one - was raised Catholic, attended parochial school through the first parts of elementary school, served as an altar boy (there were no altar girls at the time), even pondered becoming a priest, although more along the lines of “cowboy, policeman, astronaut…” than anything serious. OTOH, my father was also baptized Catholic but never attended mass with us, so it wasn’t a complete family thing.
I on the second one, although leaning towards II. I understand the need many people have for religion and faith, and believe that this serves some of these people quite well. Unfortunately it also often becomes a substitute for logic and empiricism, which bothers me.
B,2
As Nancarrow said, slightly ott, so more 1.6