I goofed in my last post. Please ixnay on the
No. “I don’t believe in God” is a statement of (non) belief. “God is mythical, unnecessary, and kind of silly” is an opinion about the beliefs of others.
I believe in god, and I think the “magical sky pixie” thing is not only hilarious, but also quite cute. I don’t find it insulting, and actually I think that being offended by it is a bit silly.
And you got your degree in psychology where?
Wow. jin, for the record, I think you’re a really cool individual, and I usually enjoy your posts, but that was just petty and insulting. Not blunt-but down right ignorant.
Well, I feel bad because my GD posts are, I think, partly to blame here–although I never used the MSP. Ordinarily, I try to steer clear and give the religious a respectful space, but Dreamer’s idiocy just made me snap.
OTOH, the religious folks here are the majority. Atheism is a dirty word in America. Any politician or other public figure who denied God’s existence would stir up a major shitstorm, as Jesse Ventura did when he called religious people “weakminded” in a Playboy interview a couple of years ago.
Christians are firmly in charge,in America so it seems to me that they must be awfully thinskinned if they can’t take some ribbing from the atheist minority.
RTFirefly
Just like to note that as I said previously, I don’t use “magical sky pixie”, as I feel it’s imprecise and does not reflect what most religious people believe, but how some atheists react to what some religious people believe. So it’s a valid statement of opinion by an atheist (if rather inflamatory and yes, insulting), but I wasn’t arguing that it was at all accurate to what a religious person is practising the worhip of.
Also, I intended to refer to “magical thinking” in the psychological sense, (usually) children’s belief that they can cause things in their environment to happen. So I didn’t mean to imply that Christians believe they are “practising magic”, but I have seen some who act as if they personally through their prayer are influencing the world around them, in ways that I find unrealistic.
(and btw one of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis’ Til We Have Faces. Damn he could write.)
But…
I agree with this point completely. I am not advocating lack of respect in response to lack of respect. I think we should all quit with the cheap shots of “you don’t really beleive what you say you believe”. We can disagree with each other’s beliefs, explain why we think they’re wrong, but sheesh, let’s not tell them that they don’t even really believe in what they say they do.
It is not particularly less insulting to say “I don’t believe that you don’t believe in God”* or you really want to believe in God, and just wont admit it, than for other poster to say "your god sounds like a Magical Sky Pixie to me.
*http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=108436&postid=1980327 I’d look for more, but frankly m’dear, I don’t want to kill the hamsters.
Good OP, and I hope people get the point.
Hey, like I said, if this makes me a bad person, then so be it – that’s your decision to make. One of my major hobbies is just studying people, on my own; I make my decisions based on the sum of my experience. My opinions change as my experience changes. I’m just saying that I can only see religion in a clinical sense, as a reaction to psychological needs. My mind cannot comprehend it in any other sense. It is incapable. I’m not asking you to agree with me. That’s the reason I lost any semblance of “faith” I ever had… once I started exploring the reasons behind the beliefs (in myself, and those others I encountered), I couldn’t see it as anything more than a human creation. I’m not deliberatly trying to insult someone – I’m just stating my opinion. I usually keep it to myself, specifically for the reason that I don’t see it as a negative thing that people do have faith; it works for some, not for me. Very few people understand exactly what goes on in my head, and I’m not always terribly adept at articulating it in a non-inflammatory manner. So you notice I stay out of that kind of debate.
I’m not really interested in trying to justify my conclusions to anyone else. I don’t hate anyone, and if you want to dislike me because you feel I’m ignorant, then that’s your preogative. I worked for several months with a very devout Christian woman (she even liked Thomas Kinkade), and she understood my point of view after many long discussions on the matter, and I never had any less respect for her because of hers.
For the record, I was never aware that one had to have a degree in psychology to view something from a psychological perspective; when I said coming from a history of mental illness, I mean as a person who was very, very sick when I was much younger (having been rather messed up in the head myself in my teenage years.) If no one is allowed to explore certain subject matter without the benefit of a pedigree, then I might as well quit painting and making webpages while I’m at it.
You may not understand, but when you say things like that gobear along with all the other things you’ve said about my beliefs, I take it personally. How could I not? You’re not saying “dreamer’s idiocy about her beliefs”. You’ve basically in plain english said you think I’m an idiot.
I haven’t used the term “magical sky pixie”, at least until I typed this line. But it has made me laugh. To me, it has a ring of truth to it, an emperor’s-new-clothes quality, that makes it vastly amusing.
Because, to me, religion makes no sense. At all. It’s all just ludicrous. The stuff you people go through to please your fickle, unpredictable, neurotic deities is so insane, it’s a choice between laughing and losing hope in humanity. You make all these assumptions about what your god requires of you, do these bizarre rituals to curry his favor, sing excruciating hymns to praise your elusive deities, and accomplish nothing. Unless you count the net increase in human misery as an accomplishment.
I assume you’ve got your reasons, that it all makes sense to you. That you actually believe that there’s someone great enough to listen to all of you at once, and take your prayers into account. I imagine you’ve found ways to make sense of a being so inscrutable that even your highest priests declare him to be a mystery unknowable to man. But to me, it’s all silly.
It’s like watching the worshippers of ancient Greece prostrate themselves to their capricious deities; it’s like watching Aztecs sacrifice to their sun god. I’m sure that all made sense to them, too; they had their reasons to believe, as surely as you do. Ask any of them how they knew they were right in who they worshipped, and I’m sure they’d speak of faith and inscrutability too.
I, however, do not understand. I don’t have faith that the god that I choose is automatically right, that what his church dictates is moral, that the laws in whatever ancient tome happens to have survived the ages pertain to me. I don’t want to participate in the strange and creepy rituals that have passed down through generations of worshippers.
And yet, every day of my life, I’m surrounded by people convinced that this whole structure, founded upon not one shred of actual proof, makes them somehow superior to those of us who can’t see why they’d believe in such things. Convinced that being Christian makes them moral, and gives them the authority to proclaim what’s right and wrong, they proclaim that their influence is so vast that children shouldn’t pledge their allegiance to their country without kowtowing to their god as well. They pass laws based on nothing but their prurient and baseless abhorrence of completely natural, pleasurable, harmless activities, simply because they are strong in numbers and shrilly vocal. For our own good, they say, they are locking us up, persecuting us, to keep us from going to their nonexistent hell.
For the most part, I just leave them all alone. I don’t want any part of the life they lead, in thrall to their invisible omnipotent lawgiver, so I just smile at the religious references, ignore the jabs about my churchlessness, and go about leading a good life, no matter what you might call it. But every so often, it’s refreshing to see them get all defensive about their whole religion thing; it’s fun to watch them try and defend their absurd costumed pageantry, their ritual, their reliance upon prophecies and laws written by primitive tribespeople. The absurdity of it amuses me. The debate over the term “mythical sky pixie” is simply hysterical. How do you know God doesn’t revel in being a mythical sky pixie? That the deity you worship is so humorless that he doesn’t look forward to the opportunity to greet a few agnostics at those pearly gates of yours with a hearty, booming, “Mythical sky pixie, huh? I’ll show you mythical sky pixie, heathen!” How do you know what your god really thinks at all?
I will continue to try to be as reverent as I can seem toward as many beliefs as the people around me hold; everybody is entitled to their beliefs, and to not be persecuted or even laughed at for whatever faiths they hold. At least not to their face. But know that there are some of us out here who, when faced with the rituals and ceremony and quoting of scripture of dubious origin to prop up a senseless and primitive morality, have a hard time not envisioning you hordes of faithful as cultists from Conan the Barbarian, or the deluded computer worshippers of numerous Star Trek episodes.
It would all be hysterically funny, if religion didn’t have a disturbing tendency to leave so many dead bodies and ruined lives in its wake.
MrVisible: That’s Magical Sky Pixie. You lousy fucking heretic.
Great post, Mr Visible. There’s pretty much nothing I could add after that…
JFTR, not all of us have to behave in odd or strenuous ways to please our deit(y)(ies) of choice.
Some of us can just kick back and enjoy a sunset while popping open a cold one.
Wow, I suddenly feel a strange kinship with pld…that’s a first. I’ve told my best friend Aaron on occasion that his being a Christian is somewhat like a MENSA member having a crack habit. Really, I respect his intelligence so much that I can’t help but think he should know better. I still love him as a best friend, a longtime best friend, and I respect him as a person. I will not, and cannot, think of his beliefs as anything other than poppycock. Over the years, I have given up on arguing the point. I now am generally content to use what I learn here and elsewhere about Christianity to spark thought in him, get him to at least throw a theology with some philosophical concepts into that Protestant Christian brain of his. We’ve reached a happy medium.
Now I realize that there are many people who are quite smart who, for some reason unknown to me after years of searching for it, believe in god. I can respect those people, but I will not respect the belief any more than I respect the belief that 2+2=5.
Those who believe in god seem alot like Flat Earthers. (I hope there hasn’t been a big debacle on this board in the past regarding them, I don’t mean to bring that back up if so.) I would feel no guilt over some light mockery of the belief in a Flat Earth. Plenty of people here have mocked beliefs I hold, and have done so with much scorn. I do not begrudge these people their right to mock me, I merely ask that I can do the same.
I am constantly exposed to people who assert not only that there is a god, but that it has absolute power over me, and that it dictates whether my actions are morally right or wrong. When they state the belief, they always state that god rules all these areas for everyone, whether or not those people believe in him/it. After so many years of that, I need to lash out on occasion and diminish “god” by calling it’s nonexistant conceptual form stupid ridiculous names. I deny the power of the concept of “god” over my life, minimize and ridicule it. I do this by cogent argument plenty of times over a week on this board, in discussions with close friends and in my readings on philosophy. Once and awhile I like to be more flippant. I’ve never done so here, I have never used a flippant term for “god” like described on this board. I defend my privilege to do so, however.
Perhaps you theists can take up the idea of using some derisive word for something we atheists revere. Of course, since we are generally materialists and come from all political ideologies, good luck finding it.
Yeah, what Mr. Visible. And also RexDart.
IMHO, there’s no good way to tell someone that you consider their beliefs ludicrous. Criticism of any strong belief can be jarring. However, people do consider your beliefs ludicrous. Being an athiest, I’ve heard it all before, seriously. My catholic brother calmly tells me “Well, I just don’t think you’ve spent as much time thinking about it (god) as I have” which gets me a bit miffed. But hey. I get over it. There are much worse things, it seems, to call a god than MSP.
I know there are atheists and agnostics and unbelievers of good will out there; I know it because I know who at least a few of you are. I hope you are reading this thread as I am trying to read it, without taking sides, because if you are, I think you will note the apparent inability of some to even discuss the possibility of being respectful, without being disrespectful. It’s like some bizarre form of Tourette’s, some impulse that can’t be disregarded. I’m trying to decide if this surprises me; more than that, I’m trying to decide if it should.
Take a look at what’s been said here, keeping in mind that I did not solicit any opinions about religion per se:
(As if atheists are smarter or better adjusted that people of faith.)
(As if referring to religious people as “weakminded” is the same as declaring that you, personally, do not believe in God.)
(Well, that one speaks for itself, doesn’t it?)
The funny thing is, this level of vitriol – and really no other word quite fits, at least where the last is concerned – is totally inconsistent with not caring about religion or what others believe. Some people obviously care quite a lot. It’s like slagging off you ex – you know, the one you don’t give shit about, which everyone would of course believe, except for the venom with which you slag him/her off. And when someone asks you to stop, it’s not just that you say “no, I’m not going to stop, I think it’s justifed, thanks,” – it’s that you can’t resist doing it again, right then. I dunno, maybe it’s me; but there’s just nothing I detest that much. And if I did – if I quite literally could not keep a civil tongue in my head on the issue – I sure as hell wouldn’t claim the high ground of rationality or maturity at the same time.
I truly don’t feel defensive about this. I appreciate all the responses, because they’re honest and revealing. I appreciate especially those who do not believe, but yet concede the point about differentiating between endorsement of belief and the practice of common courtesy. That’s all I was ever asking, and if it becomes a criticism of me personally – you know: immature, humorless me – I’ll just live with that.
There’s another one! “I respect his intelligence so much I can’t help thinking he should know better.” Are you guys listening to yourselves? Do you realize how this sounds? Seriously. I’m not speaking as a theist here, but . . . do you realize how this sounds?
Yes, I care about religion. Know why? Because religion has a huge impact on my life.
It’s religion that’s keeping me from marrying my boyfriend; without antiquated religious taboos, it would be a standard, simple legal contract. It’s the same bizarre superstitions about homosexuality, reinforced constantly by the amazingly vocal religious contingent, that makes it unsafe for my love and I to hold hands while watching a movie. Religious people have declared gay people to be abominations, religious people leading my country have declared that atheists aren’t real citizens, religious people blow up buildings for their hallucinatory gods.
If they’d stay out of my life, and stop imposing their primitive belief system on me through organized efforts at theocratizing the legal system, then I’d probably be a lot more blase. As it is, I’m fighting for my rights to exist as a full citizen of the country that I was born in, and my only impediment is a smugly self-assured cult that believes it can base modern morality on a loose interpretation of an antiquated set of mistranslated, heavily edited rules for pre-medieval existence.
And this isn’t vitriol. Not by a long shot. This is me trying to explain my position, and why “mythical sky pixie” amuses the heck out of me. Your reaction to it being the most amusing part. Read all the anger you want into my post; it was composed using civil terms, and was an honest assessment of my opinion of religion.
I find it truly funny that even the suggestion that your deity doesn’t exist, the fact that some people find your gesticulations and pleas to your infallible yet indecipherable god truly ludicrous, should be interpreted as anger. I’m not mad at you. You’re just funny.
** MrVisible **, wow. If I wasn’t an Atheist already you would have swayed me. You summed up my exact reasons for choosing my beliefs. I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to copy your replies and put them up on my wall. Just, wow…
Jodi,
I agree with every word (except “it’s fun”) in this quote. Try to imagine a belief you really don’t take seriously. And imagine how it would be like if it was widely widespread around you and if people were doing in the name of this belief the kind of thing people are doing in the name of religion. i suppose you’ll understand terms like “costumed pagentry”.
How could I state I respect your “reliance upon prophecies and laws written by primitive tribes people”, since your religion is exactly that, how much offensive you could find it. I could perhaps pretend that I respect your beliefs. But I don’t. And words like the one you’re quoted don’t appear to me as insults but just as the plain truth. You’re indeed conducting weird costumed rituals in the name of an invisible being made up by some nomads thousand years ago. It’s not vitriol, it’s exactly why you’re doing. The only word you could argue against, from your point of view, is “made up”.
Actually, I think you don’t realize to which extent religion can appear weird when you’re not a believer. You seem too accustomed to your beliefs to realize that for someone like me , there’s really no difference between your god and a “magical sky pixie”. I don’t even use it to irritate you. It’s plainly what I think.
I would add that not only I don’t respect religions, but I even dislike them. Because they’re misleading people, because believers want to regulate society on the basis or arbitrary rules supposedly edicted by unexistant creatures, and because of the many crimes commited in their name (I know that many crimes have been commited in the name of many things, but at least there were tangible reasons, wrong or right…you can dislike these terms, but just imagine people killing each other in the name of an unexisting thing like santa claus or the great pixie, and you’ll understand what I can feel sometimes…that I live in an asylium ). So, how could I, and even why should I display the kind of respect you’re expecting?
By the way, refering to my posts in another Pit thread, how can you expect me to respect the beliefs of someone who thinks there would be nothing wrong with me being tortured forever if I don’t follow blindly the rules contained in some arbitrary old book? Someone tell me : “I admire so much the guy who will most probably torture you”, and I should respect her opinion/belief??? Is it a joke I don’t get, or is she insane??? I guess you should take the time to consider your beliefs and statements from the point of view of an atheist (like in someone who really, seriously, thinks that your god is nothing more than a magical sky pixie…), if you want to understand from where our comments come…
I was going to stay out of this one, but MrVisible and clairobscur have said it so well in this post and the other thread that I have to add my voice of assent.
I’m tired of being beaten in the head with religion, as well.
I promise not to call your God the magical sky pixie as long as you don’t proselytize to me.