How do Christians shove their beliefs down your throat?

[ONtop888]

so they are right for forcing their beliefs on me?

Bro, you're being too sensitive. I volunteered at an urban retirement hospital for Catholic nuns, and there were non-Christians working there. The sweet old ladies would invite all of us into their rooms and hang out. Most did not ask if i was Catholic/Christian, but they would randomly share bible passages and devotional prayers with everyone. Why? Because that is their entire life. There were a few angry nuns out of a large population, but thy were just bitter people. Furthermore, you should expect to hear about religion while working at a religious retirement community. When I go to Mormon events then I expect to hear about their beliefs. I do not condone someone getting in your face, and yelling at you about religion or maliciously making fun of you, that IS forceful.

[ONtop888]

Bans on stem cell research.
/thread pt deux

Both of those issues, abortion + stem cell research, are not quite as clear cut as, say, gay marriage. Gay marriage doesn't hurt people. Abortion is believed by many citizens in our country to be killing life (what stage of life and what consequences all factor into their beliefs). Stem cell research can fall under the same category or under what the government should or should not fund.

[fappindontpay]

Both of those issues, abortion + stem cell research, are not quite as clear cut as, say, gay marriage. Gay marriage doesn't hurt people. Abortion is believed by many citizens in our country to be killing life (what stage of life and what consequences all factor into their beliefs). Stem cell research can fall under the same category or under what the government should or should not fund.

Almost all of the funding for the aforementioned issues comes from religious-based organizations.

I am an atheist and am against abortion, but there is denying that the anti-abortion movement simply would not exist as it currently does if not for Christian-based analysis of the issue.

[jnew19]

"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." --President George W Bush, July 9, 2004


If you can't see how Christianism has influenced bad foreign policy, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, et al...is this real life?

President's not a dictator, man. He has congress, senate, etc. to deal with, and they aren't proclaming that God speaks to them. Everything can't be Bush's fault.

[ONtop888]

Almost all of the funding for the aforementioned issues comes from religious-based organizations.

I am an atheist and am against abortion, but there is denying that the anti-abortion movement simply would not exist as it currently does if not for Christian-based analysis of the issue.

Absolutely, but our laws are largely formed by prevalent culture within the framework of the Constitution. I was keeping USRanger's comment in mind about not legislating morality when it doesn't hurt another person, and the grey zone in the abortion debate is ripe with arguments all over the spectrum.

[Beeewbs]

I'm just curious which one's you don't like.

I'm all for:

don't lie
don't cheat
don't murder
don't steal
honor your parents
help the needy
love others as you love yourself
be humble and meek
haven't met a secular person that strongly adhered to these, let alone the others I'm sure you can think of.

Negged. I actually don't know any Christians like this.

[ftwrestler]

Bro, you're being too sensitive. I volunteered at an urban retirement hospital for Catholic nuns, and there were non-Christians working there. The sweet old ladies would invite all of us into their rooms and hang out. Most did not ask if i was Catholic/Christian, but they would randomly share bible passages and devotional prayers with everyone. Why? Because that is their entire life. There were a few angry nuns out of a large population, but thy were just bitter people. Furthermore, you should expect to hear about religion while working at a religious retirement community. When I go to Mormon events then I expect to hear about their beliefs. I do not condone someone getting in your face, and yelling at you about religion or maliciously making fun of you, that IS forceful.

it is not like they are nicely sharing with me. Some are, there is is judgement is some peoples eyes. it get some evil looks from some nuns. i am not being too senstive.

i said i dont care if i hear about or even if they want to talk about it, but when nun come up to me and tell me to 'change my ways', i get a little offended.

I love talking about religion. i really do. it is an interesting topic.

[markymark69]

Both of those issues, abortion + stem cell research, are not quite as clear cut as, say, gay marriage. Gay marriage doesn't hurt people. Abortion is believed by many citizens in our country to be killing life (what stage of life and what consequences all factor into their beliefs). Stem cell research can fall under the same category or under what the government should or should not fund.

No..they are clear cut. Both are legal medical procedures opposed only by bible bangers.

I dont see any atheists out there protesting at women's health clinics. None. Nada. Zil. Zilch.

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

No..they are clear cut. Both are legal medical procedures opposed only by bible bangers.

I dont see any atheists out there protesting at women's health clinics. None. Nada. Zil. Zilch.

That's a good point. I do see atheists engaging in discussion about these topics, though, trying to reach a rational conclusion.

[bigkarl]

I'm just curious which one's you don't like.

I'm all for:

don't lie
don't cheat
don't murder
don't steal
honor your parents
help the needy
love others as you love yourself
be humble and meek
haven't met a secular person that strongly adhered to these, let alone the others I'm sure you can think of.

So all the non-religious people you have met are criminals/liars?

[burnedfish]

So all the non-religious people you have met are criminals/liars?

All the secular people I know do not follow these values in totality, or even try to, no. I didn't say they ignore them all. But I haven't met a non-religious person who held these values in the face of possible gain. I don't know anyone who won't justify breaking these values for themselves, me included. I am working on it though, through His help, whereas those I know break them and justify it constantly.

I feel like I didn't write my OP correctly. I haven't met ANY person who adheres to these at all times and has never faltered. But I have met people who try to adhere to them and are truly repentant if they abuse them. I also know people who break them and have a great excuse and have no problem breaking them again, for their own self-serving purposes.

In no way could I make a claim that all non-religious people don't follow these. I am confident there are MANY who follow these throughout their life. The purpose of my post, as poorly worded as it was, was that the values taught by Christianity are fantastic, I find them to be essential to a fulfilling life, and contribute the BEST to a functioning collective society. I also hold to my statement, at least what I meant, that our society as a whole does not consider these to be values held high or adhered to. Considering most of the people I know are non-religious, I hold that in my experience the general non-religious public does not find these to be values worth pursuing, because they don't allow for self-serving, individualistic 'whatever I want as long as I don't 'hurt' others' mentality.

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

All the secular people I know do not follow these values in totality, or even try to, no. I didn't say they ignore them all. But I haven't met a non-religious person who held these values in the face of possible gain. I don't know anyone who won't justify breaking these values for themselves, me included. I am working on it though, through His help, whereas those I know break them and justify it constantly.

I feel like I didn't write my OP correctly. I haven't met ANY person who adheres to these at all times and has never faltered. But I have met people who try to adhere to them and are truly repentant if they abuse them. I also know people who break them and have a great excuse and have no problem breaking them again, for their own self-serving purposes.

In no way could I make a claim that all non-religious people don't follow these. I am confident there are MANY who follow these throughout their life. The purpose of my post, as poorly worded as it was, was that the values taught by Christianity are fantastic, I find them to be essential to a fulfilling life, and contribute the BEST to a functioning collective society. I also hold to my statement, at least what I meant, that our society as a whole does not consider these to be values held high or adhered to. Considering most of the people I know are non-religious, I hold that in my experience the general non-religious public does not find these to be values worth pursuing, because they don't allow for self-serving, individualistic 'whatever I want as long as I don't 'hurt' others' mentality.

You live in a bubble, or you're willfully ignorant. Either way, you're wrong.

[b.spencer]

I hold that in my experience the general non-religious public does not find these to be values worth pursuing, because they don't allow for self-serving, individualistic 'whatever I want as long as I don't 'hurt' others' mentality.

You had me a bit more sympathetic to your position -- just a little bit -- until this line. The "Christian" values you mention are the very definition of "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others."

Lying, cheating, killing, stealing, dishonor, hated -- all of them defines ways in which we hurt others. If a "non-religious" person did not embrace what you mentioned, then they would never hold to a philosophy of "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others." They would be doing whatever they wanted, even if it hurt others.

Your argument holds no water. If the "secular" philosophy truly is "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others," then the secular would embrace the character traits you spoke of earlier with a vengeance and dogmatism most Christians could only dream about.

[burnedfish]

You live in a bubble, or you're willfully ignorant. Either way, you're wrong.

ok.

[burnedfish]

You had me a bit more sympathetic to your position -- just a little bit -- until this line. The "Christian" values you mention are the very definition of "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others."

Lying, cheating, killing, stealing, dishonor, hated -- all of them defines ways in which we hurt others. If a "non-religious" person did not embrace what you mentioned, then they would never hold to a philosophy of "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others." They would be doing whatever they wanted, even if it hurt others.

Your argument holds no water. If the "secular" philosophy truly is "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others," then the secular would embrace the character traits you spoke of earlier with a vengeance and dogmatism most Christians could only dream about.

I guess I am extremely confused at this post. How would those who do not hold the values, never hold to a "philosophy of "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others."".

I have just seen those who, for example, cheat and lie on exams, and say "it isn't hurting anyone". That is where I am coming from: the justification of those who may think they hold the values, as long as they don't hurt others in their mind.

I think I am grasping what you are saying though, but it isn't how people act.

[b.spencer]

I guess I am extremely confused at this post. How would those who do not hold the values, never hold to a "philosophy of "doing whatever I want as long as I don't hurt others."".

I have just seen those who, for example, cheat and lie on exams, and say "it isn't hurting anyone". That is where I am coming from: the justification of those who may think they hold the values, as long as they don't hurt others in their mind.

I think I am grasping what you are saying though, but it isn't how people act.

Let me take your example then and use myself -- someone you would term secular since I am an agnostic atheist -- as the person in question. I basically hold the philosophy that I should be able to "do whatever I want as log as I don't hurt others."

Were I to lie or cheat on an exam, I would be hurting others as well as myself. I would damage myself because I would not know what I appeared to know, and that would be very dangerous potentially to myself in certain situations. It also arms others who did study and learn by putting their achievement in a poorer light. I harm them and I harm myself. And it is not just rhetorical statements with me. I have been connected to a polygraph and quizzed about dozens of pages of documents to get my current job, just to see if I was honest, if I had cheated, lied, etc at times in the past. I passed with flying colors.

The same applies over and over again to those other character qualities your mentioned were "Christian" in nature. If you truly value the rights of others, then you hold those character traits dear, Christian or not.

[dakensta]

I dunno if you'd count this as "shoving their beliefs down my throat" but I hate talking to the kind of people who have to mention God or Jeebus every other sentence.
"Lovely weather we're having lately, God be praised.
I hear you're expecting your exam results soon, I hope God grants you the results you want.
Oh you got the results, and you passed? God was kind to you there, right?
Well, I know God didn't mark the paper, and know you had to study and all, but God granted you the ability to study so har..
What? Oh. Bye."

[HalcyonDays]

There are 1.5 billion people on this planet who identify themselves as "Christian." To make any blanket statement that encompasses them all is simply ignorant.

I can rattle of names of prominent 20th century avowed atheists who committed mass genocide (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot...). That doesn't mean that atheists are murderous tyrants.

People need to educate themselves and stop generalizing like a bunch of bigoted, bred-back yokels.

[HalcyonDays]

Let me take your example then and use myself -- someone you would term secular since I am an agnostic atheist -- as the person in question. I basically hold the philosophy that I should be able to "do whatever I want as log as I don't hurt others."

Were I to lie or cheat on an exam, I would be hurting others as well as myself. I would damage myself because I would not know what I appeared to know, and that would be very dangerous potentially to myself in certain situations. It also arms others who did study and learn by putting their achievement in a poorer light. I harm them and I harm myself. And it is not just rhetorical statements with me. I have been connected to a polygraph and quizzed about dozens of pages of documents to get my current job, just to see if I was honest, if I had cheated, lied, etc at times in the past. I passed with flying colors.

The same applies over and over again to those other character qualities your mentioned were "Christian" in nature. If you truly value the rights of others, then you hold those character traits dear, Christian or not.

Maybe you could start by explaining what an agnostic atheist is. Better yet, take World Religion 101 and then get back to me.

[Scoundrel]

Let me take your example then and use myself -- someone you would term secular since I am an agnostic atheist -- as the person in question. I basically hold the philosophy that I should be able to "do whatever I want as log as I don't hurt others."

Were I to lie or cheat on an exam, I would be hurting others as well as myself. I would damage myself because I would not know what I appeared to know, and that would be very dangerous potentially to myself in certain situations. It also arms others who did study and learn by putting their achievement in a poorer light. I harm them and I harm myself. And it is not just rhetorical statements with me. I have been connected to a polygraph and quizzed about dozens of pages of documents to get my current job, just to see if I was honest, if I had cheated, lied, etc at times in the past. I passed with flying colors.

The same applies over and over again to those other character qualities your mentioned were "Christian" in nature. If you truly value the rights of others, then you hold those character traits dear, Christian or not.

So you told the truth that you had infact cheated, lied, etc in the past?

[dakensta]

Some people need to educate themselves and stop generalizing like a bunch generalizing people.

fix'd

[Boffothe]

Bro, you're being too sensitive. I volunteered at an urban retirement hospital for Catholic nuns, and there were non-Christians working there. The sweet old ladies would invite all of us into their rooms and hang out. Most did not ask if i was Catholic/Christian, but they would randomly share bible passages and devotional prayers with everyone. Why? Because that is their entire life. There were a few angry nuns out of a large population, but thy were just bitter people. Furthermore, you should expect to hear about religion while working at a religious retirement community. When I go to Mormon events then I expect to hear about their beliefs. I do not condone someone getting in your face, and yelling at you about religion or maliciously making fun of you, that IS forceful.

Sorry, some of us get a little comfortable when a suspected child molester invites us into their rooms to "hang out". You should have smothered the old witches

[Mr Beer]

How do Christians shove their beliefs down your throat?

To me personally? It pretty much doesn't happen. However, I live in Australia.

[b.spencer]

Maybe you could start by explaining what an agnostic atheist is. Better yet, take World Religion 101 and then get back to me.

I have 20 hours of religion classes with my undergrad. Your point?

Agnostic = a-gnosis = without knowledge
Atheist - without deity

In common use, agnostic atheist is a sub class of atheism such that the person lacks a belief in god, without afirmative knowledge of such. As opposed to a gnostic atheist who claims specific knowledge that there is no deity.

[b.spencer]

So you told the truth that you had infact cheated, lied, etc in the past?

Yes.

After establishing that, I was then tested as to the honesty of the answers to the questions that were part of the forms, my past criminal activity, my credit report, school records, personal life, etc. To see if I was willing to lie or cheat on those. I passed the examination.

[b.spencer]

I'm just curious which one's you don't like.

I'm all for:

don't lie
don't cheat
don't murder
don't steal
honor your parents
help the needy
love others as you love yourself
be humble and meek
haven't met a secular person that strongly adhered to these, let alone the others I'm sure you can think of.

Something a friend sent me today that sheds a lot of light on this viewpoint and WHY the religious think it --

There's a lot out there about the psychology of religion and the intersection of religion and morality.

In this fascinating lecture, Dr. Luke Galen (of the Reasonable Doubts podcast) summarizes a college course on the link between morality and religion. Namely, what are the evidences for religion being the source of morality vs. merely a reflection of morality.

There's a few-minute clip (from about 05:40 to 11:00 minutes) that shows a study he did. Here's a link directly to that spot:


The short version:

For the exact same moral action (charity work building houses), people who were not religious judged the morality of that service roughly the same whether it said the person did it for religious reasons or not. But for religious people, their perception of how moral that work was varied considerably depending on whether the charity-giver was shown to do it for religious reasons or not.

Moreover, the religious judged more harshly - that is, they only judged the "religious moral" act to be slighly more moral than the non-religious average judgment. But they judged the non-religious charity to be much less moral than for the religious do-gooder.

To me this says religion (in general) doesn't influence our moral compass as much as it does polarize it. It accentuates the in-group tribal bias and makes us think people who do things for reasons that match our world-view are much more moral, where their actions are really the same as anyone else. It leads us to conflate moral behaviors with in-group conformity.

[Scoundrel]

Yes.

After establishing that, I was then tested as to the honesty of the answers to the questions that were part of the forms, my past criminal activity, my credit report, school records, personal life, etc. To see if I was willing to lie or cheat on those. I passed the examination.

Thats cool, i was looking into being a cop once, got their sample questions, and i scurred. i mean i would tell the truth, but they would definitely be scratching their heads lol.

(hypothetically)
have you ever commited a felony...yes
have you ever been around prostitution activities...yes
have you ever sold drugs...yes
etc

lol, i would fail the test massively, past life mistakes. would be a good cop for the people tho

[Mr Beer]

To me this says religion (in general) doesn't influence our moral compass as much as it does polarize it. It accentuates the in-group tribal bias and makes us think people who do things for reasons that match our world-view are much more moral, where their actions are really the same as anyone else. It leads us to conflate moral behaviors with in-group conformity.

Interesting comment, reps.

[burnedfish]

*snip*

Thanks for the post! I am definitely going to watch that whole video.

[Inev]

I've heard it said that some are tired of Christians cramming their religion down others' necks. Frankly, I haven't witnessed this myself, so I am curious where and how this is being done.

gay marriage
abortion