The Lion King
So, when someone is not religious and they break up with you, you can call them superficial or a bitch but when someone is religious and they break up with you, this is more of a problem because you should have expected them to be a flake? Why not just accept the possibility that the religious person could be a superficial bitch, too?
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
[Jeremy Irons] You have no idea how strange. [/Jeremy Irons]what the hell is that from, anyway?
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The Lion King. And I have to agree with you, pseudo.
[QUOTE=dangermom]
Uh-huh. And you would find it really disrespectful if a religious person said something similar about atheists, wouldn’t you? “Deep down, they know there’s a God. They just don’t want to admit it.”
By all means, don’t date a person with religious beliefs if you think they’re all stupid and irrational. That’s hardly a good foundation for a relationship.
[/QUOTE]
**
Sal,** to whom you’re responding here, has said he’s in a commited relationship with a religious person, so he obviously has no problem with such a relationship. Maybe this was directed at me?
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
I have to agree with you, pseudo.
[/QUOTE]
That I’m strange? Or that religious people are scary? Or both? Or on everything I’ve ever said?
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
The Lion King. And I have to agree with you, pseudo.
[/QUOTE]
About dating religious people, that is, not about being strange! I wouldn’t exactly phrase it as being worried that they’d leave me with no explanation, but if they do believe in God then that would make them so different from me that I don’t know how we’d get along on a day to day basis. And I consider myself an agnostic.
[QUOTE=dangermom]
Uh-huh. And you would find it really disrespectful if a religious person said something similar about atheists, wouldn’t you? “Deep down, they know there’s a God. They just don’t want to admit it.”
[/QUOTE]
Not to go too far off on a tangent here, but people who espouse a religion have a certain set of beliefs that they can point to – the Bible, for example. So when I see people who claim they believe in the Bible, and yet don’t follow any of its dictates, I allow myself to be skeptical about their beliefs. Atheists, on the other hand, because they have no set belief system, are at least proof against this form of inconsistency. Though I grant, if someone said they were an atheist, and yet superstitiously believed in knocking on wood, for example, I’d say you’d be justified in being skeptical about their atheism.
And let me say that I wouldn’t qualify my wife as someone very religious. But everything I know about her religiosity, or lack of it, I know by inference. To me, this is one of those subjects NOT TO BE TOUCHED, and I don’t care how many relationship advice books say the contrary. Ignorance is sometimes bliss, may the Blessed Cecil forgive me.
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
…she could just up and inform me out of nowhere “You know that whole getting married/being in love/ enjoying your company thing we’ve been going on about? That’s over. No special reason. The universe just called out to me and say ‘Screw that,’ so I’m leaving you” and I have no way to voice my complaint because I’ve accepted that this person believes in an essentially irrational existence from the get go.
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Welcome, stranger. We call this place “Earth”. You’ll need these three critical pieces of advice to get along here: don’t tug on Superman’s cape, don’t spit into the wind, and watch out for the ladies - they’re fickle, they are. 
Oddly enough, Jeremy Irons said something similar here too it seems. Strange indeed.
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
[QUOTE=Zog_10]
I am not trying to start the trainwreck, but I feel that if you said “something that I believe is fundamentally irrational” it might go over better. Just my $0.02
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Gimme another $0.01? I don’t follow.
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Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I meant that you clearly believe that people who believe in organized religion (“Jesus in a rowboat” as you said in your OP) are by nature irrational people. While I disagree, I absolutely acknowledge your right & ability to believe that. So I was just offering up…advice I guess, that it would be nicer to say “I believe that religious people are irrational” rather than what I thought I read, which was more a factual statement; i.e.
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
the person I’m with believes in something that’s fundamentally irrational
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That’s all - just some hope that we could keep the thread from trainwreck-land if someone got pissed at the language instead of the meaning.
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
It’s not about up and jetting–anyone could do that. Its about “up and jetting for reasons that make zero sense to me.” If I’m with another atheist, at least we both agree at the outset that making rational sense is a worthy goal, so if we part on unsatisfyingly irrational terms, I can console myself that she violated her own principles in embracing irrationality. With a religious person, I’m more like “Well, what did you expect?”
[/QUOTE]
And that’s why I agree with what you’re doing. If you feel that religious people are more likely to be irrational and that would frustrate/annoy you, then by all means avaoid them. I guess I was just trying to say that I don’t think that religious people are any more or less likely to be irrational for no apparent reason than the rest of the population - I’ve found that the irrational religious people who attribute their irratiuonality to their religion are few and are easily recognized as such from the get go. As you said, “Jesus told me to buy this car!” is strange, and that typically is obvious in all aspects of a person’s life. I think that the likelihood that a person would be otherwise normal and then suddenly go religious wacko is small, but that’s my opinion and not necessarily 100% accurate.
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
**
Sal,** to whom you’re responding here, has said he’s in a commited relationship with a religious person, so he obviously has no problem with such a relationship. Maybe this was directed at me?
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, yes, the second part was directed to you. I just forgot to type in your name first, and didn’t realize until after I submitted it that it was subject to confusion.
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
That IS the box I’ve checked–“spiritual but not religious”–but there’s still some scariness there.
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To describe yourself? That seems either dishonest or disingenuous to me.
twicks, who really is “spiritual but not religious”
[QUOTE=twickster]
twicks, who really is “spiritual but not religious”
[/QUOTE]
What exactly does that mean? I’ve never been able to figure that out.
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
Atheists, on the other hand, because they have no set belief system, are at least proof against this form of inconsistency. Though I grant, if someone said they were an atheist, and yet superstitiously believed in knocking on wood, for example, I’d say you’d be justified in being skeptical about their atheism.
[/QUOTE]
Why? Atheism and superstition aren’t contradictory, unless you avoid walking under ladders in case a god strikes you down.
[QUOTE=Eve]
What exactly does that mean? I’ve never been able to figure that out.
[/QUOTE]
Whenever we have this discussion, it tends to boil down to that “spirituality” means “unorganized religion” and “religion” means “organized religion”. Why they won’t just use the unambiguous terms, I don’t know.
[QUOTE=Eve]
What exactly does that mean? I’ve never been able to figure that out.
[/QUOTE]
For me, it means I believe in (what, for lack of a better term, we might as well call [a]) god, but that I’m not a Christian – or otherwise associated with any organized religion.
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
Whenever we have this discussion, it tends to boil down to that “spirituality” means “unorganized religion” and “religion” means “organized religion”. Why they won’t just use the unambiguous terms, I don’t know.
[/QUOTE]
Religion, by (most) definition(s), involves an organized group of believers, or a community of some sort. Thus spirituality, which is more individual, is a meaningfully distinct category.
twicks, PhD, sociology of religion
[QUOTE=twickster]
Religion, by (most) definition(s), involves an organized group of believers, or a community of some sort. Thus spirituality, which is more individual, is a meaningfully distinct category.
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That can be much more easily and unambiguously distinguished by simply using “organized” and “unorganized”. Or “personal”, if you prefer.
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
That can be much more easily and unambiguously distinguished by simply using “organized” and “unorganized”. Or “personal”, if you prefer.
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More easily to you – scholars use the specific terms with various meanings and implications attached. IOW, your choice of arbitrary terms comes after a different set of arbitrary terms have come to be agreed upon by a large group of people who think about this for a living.
[QUOTE=twickster]
More easily to you – scholars use the specific terms with various meanings and implications attached. IOW, your choice of arbitrary terms comes after a different set of arbitrary terms have come to be agreed upon by a large group of people who think about this for a living.
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Most of the time, when someone says something like “spiritual but not religious”, someone will ask what the hell the distinction is. Using my terms, that everybody understands whether they think about it for a living or not, that wouldn’t happen.
Feel free to join pseud over there in the “if everyone thought like me the world would be a better place” corner.