I’m done playing word games-Politics isn’t religion, and atheists pushing a political candidate is not the same as atheists going door to door pushing atheism the same way some Christians go door to door pushing their religion.
No. When I was a Christian, I never prayed real hard for other gods to reveal themselves.
I should remind the OP that, beyond being Christian, the U.S is largely monotheistic as well. And while Christians, Jews, and Muslims may argue strenuously over how to worship the one God, they largely agree that they worship the same God. (Yeah, I know: there are fundie nuts who claim Allah is a false god. Whatever, dudes. Let’s stick with the grownups.)
So nobody’s gonna be knocking on my door and ask me to pray to some other god. And between that and the fact that my Christian faith is deeply embedded in who and what I am, there’s really no point at which the question of praying to some other god would come up. It’s not a symmetrical situation. You might have a point if there were nearly as many Hindus as Christians in the U.S.
I can see your point.
If anyone read what I wrote in Czarcasm’s thread on what believers think of other Gods, they won’t be surprised to know that my personal conception of God makes “contacting other deities” a kind of nonsensical idea.
I have, however, benefited from my study of non-Christian religions and religion as a phenomenon. I have been inspired by ideas from other religious traditions, and the field work I have done has been wonderfully enriching.
I’m sorry the “just try the broccoli, you’ll like it!” method of evangelizing has been used against the OP so much. It’s not completely useless but it often carries a lot of oblivious and even callous overtones. There are better ways of suggesting a specific religious tradition as a framework for making meaning.
Well, I’d suggest again (bearing in mind I don’t know the personal beliefs of the people who told this to you) that it’s not “Their God,” it is “(their conception of) The God.” “Deities” in other religions that share the fundamental characteristics of God are necessarily different conceptions of the same God, or they are other beings that are not properly “Gods,” however interesting, powerful or inspiring they may be. So moving from religion to religion involves changing ones conception of the same thing, rather than switching from one thing to another.
Of course, the skills, experience and depth of practice that most religious people get from childhood often make this change an unrewarding one, (ETA: Social pressures are a whole other area) kind of like suggesting that a 25 year old that has played a specific instrument every day since they were 5 change to a completely different one. Still, why do you think suggesting it is considered unacceptable? It seems to happen often enough.
There is a considerable difference. The monotheistic paradigm is basically framed-out in the first Commandment: I am thy god; thou shalt not worship other gods (before me).
Basically, it’s saying ‘all other faiths are not just outside your scope, they stand in opposition to me and are therefore Evil’:eek: and I’ll stop being your friend if you respect them. In practice, the deities of other societies in the region were adopted into the monotheistic literature specifically to serve as incarnations of Evil. A well-known instance is Ba’al, a philistine deity of Ekron. A common greeting equivalent to Ba’al bless your day was Baal zhe vub which the Hebrews took and twisted into Beelzebub, the name of a demonic incarnation; the name translates to “Lord of the Flies” which is another name associated with Satan. Making fun of the competition by twisting their leaders’ names into an insult is childish, but so is ‘you can’t be my friend and someone else’s friend at the same time!’
See above regarding the Jews’, Muslims’, and Christians’ regard and respect for other faiths. It’s a fair question for adherents of all three flavors of monotheism. Note, however, that an exclusionary relationship is actually unique to monotheism; most of the other religions/mythologies include a pantheon (roster of many deities) and encourage followers to worship the whole group while praying/tithing to the one that fits their lifestyle/profession best. If needs change or special circumstances arise, prayers (etcetera) to a different divine specialist within the pantheon is perfectly acceptable.
On practically the opposite end of the spectrum from monotheism, Hindus include a belief that the divine is present in all things – rocks, trees, insects, animals. To them, the Horned God may very well exist and be worthy of worship or disciple-ship; other frameworks of faith are merely variants of a multifaceted theme and need not be excluded. One can read several textbooks in the same semester.
It is considered more acceptable in modern Western society because the history of modern western culture includes a lot of Christian influence and that influence continues to this day. There may be a considerable amount of Roman and Norse mythology in the roots of western culture, but those aspects have little influence that continues to this day* in a serious (non-joking) manner.
As I write in response to the OP’s question, I realize the Christian invitation is a subtle and nefarious trap: Since your pagan/heathen/atheist resources have failed you, let me invite you to pray to the deity I worship. Oh, you prayed to God/Allah/Jesus? Well then, according to the first rule of our system you can’t go back any more, not without pissing-off the deity you just recognized and suffering his jealous vengeance.
—G!
Hell hath no fury
like Eloxim scorned!
:dubious:
*…except, quite remarkably, for our referrals to the days of the week and the months of the year but most people are as unaware of those religio-linguistic roots as they are unaware of the Christian basis of saying “Goodbye” to each other.
Yes they are.
Please expand. How is my belief that the sun will rise tomorrow a religion?
You’re having a real problem with the word “synonym”. Let me help. I’ve already given you two dictionary definitions of synonym, and I think you either refused to read them, or just didn’t understand them. A synonym is a word that means the the same or nearly the same thing in some or all cases. You seem to think synonym means words that absolutely have exact and identical meanings by every measure and possible interpretation. Not so. Perhaps you are currently involved in conceptual clustering or logical fallacies and wish to apply some clever irony or contradiction to simple terms that are in fact synonyms. If you are in doubt as to the synonymity of a set of words, you can consult a handy thesaurus, or go to this convenient website: http://www.synonym (dot) com/
If you mean to say that two words do not mean the exact same thing by any and all definitions, regardless of context, synonym isn’t the word you’re looking for.
Remember, some words that always mean exactly the same thing are synonyms, but not all synonyms are words that always mean exactly the same thing.
I’d define that as more of a reasonable expectation than a belief. After all, if you’ve been around for 15-20,000 days, and the sun has risen in all of them, then you’d expect it to rise tomorrow, even if you had never heard of Copernicus and didn’t know why it keeps on doing it. It’s built up one hell of a track record of dependability, after all.
It’s probably even less of a belief than ‘believing’ that if I kick a cinderblock with my bare foot, my toe will hurt like the devil immediately afterwards.
Jumping in, I don’t think it is necessarily, but it could easily be. Beliefs are not just things held in abstract, they are practiced also. Imagine you’re going through a rough patch. And you tell yourself each night, when things seem especially terrible: “the sun will rise tomorrow.” And this gives you more strength to keep going. Suddenly, this practice of actively believing the sun will rise tomorrow becomes meaningful. And making things meaningful is what religion is all about.
Well, if you believe it will rise because the people have been honouring Pharaoh properly… 
Isn’t it more like saying “I am your spouse; you will not sleep with other people besides me?” That doesn’t mean other people are necessarily evil.
Buddhism is a missionary religion that makes many truth claims. Pre-colonial Hindu disputations with Muslims and others also contradict this. And while it’s true that many non-monotheistic religions offered freedom of choice among deities to a certain extent, they tend to be exclusivist in other ways, relating to ritual and practice. Orthodoxy versus Orthopraxy, in other words.
This “trap” only works to the extent that social and legal pressure exists to wreak that “jealous vengeance” in this life. This is why freedom of religion (including the right to leave a religion) is such an important right.
I just want to remind people that this little sidetrack got started when someone asked me why I was bringing up atheism in conversations in the first place and I responded
, clearing referring to religious beliefs since that is the topic of this thread, and SirGalahad shot back with
That last sentence clearly indicating that that he knew this was about religion specifically, and not beliefs in general. My statement that atheists do not generally go door-to-door to spread atheism still stands.
Yeah, we’re making fruit salad, here. It doesn’t matter how many people would define tomatoes and avocadoes as fruit. They still don’t belong in that salad.
How about if the Atheists were pursuing signatures, if not door-to-door, then in a public square or mall, to have a Xmas Manger or the Ten Commandments (or in God We Trust) removed from a public display? Sort of too close to pushing Atheism on the general population to declare it a non-similar event. I’ll grant that some argue the First Amendment directs the Government to establish such a separation of church and state (Thanks Jefferson), but it’s as controversial a subject as the Second Amendment allowing the Government to disarm (in a limited fashion) (some of) the People because of wording like “militia” and “well regulated”.
How about you show us a real world cite showing us that this “what-if” of yours is anywhere near as common as Christians doing the same thing.
Just to clarify, in case it was ambiguous : I was just making a silly joke because I was given half an opportunity to. It wasn’t meant to insinuate or mean anything.
It was only meant to let you let out a half-hearted chuckle, maybe pelt the teller with not-too-rotten fruit and not-quite-empty beer bottles if you were a kind soul.
“Atheists aren’t the ones that go door-to-door or stand in the commons accosting people about their beliefs.”
I don’t see “as common” in your claim here. I don’t think I need a cite as to the frequency or ubiquity of the type of event I described. But, on a personal note, I’ve seen “Separation of Church and State” groups pushing petitions in Oregon and Texas for the removal of Xtian symbols, and they weren’t making it a secret that they were Atheists. I recognized some of them from the Atheist “It’s not a Church even though we get together Sunday mornings” Fellowship meetings I’d attended. They were wearing T-shirts and carrying signs that identified them as Atheists.
By the way, I’m all for people petitioning for changes in our society that they think will change it for the better. I don’t resent them unless they’re aggressive or psychotic.
I don’t mind the not-too-rotten fruit, but I’m not sure I can forgive your throwing beer bottles that haven’t been properly emptied.