learning about demons and christians
On a recent post about demons and exorcism, I learned that the Christian belief in demons is more popular than I had previously imagined. I’d like to thank all the Christians who took time to stop by to give their input on the post. Although not a representative sample of Christianity by any means, they did give a variety of different perspectives that I thought would be useful to summarise.
- Some of the Christians argued that, regardless of whether we believe in demons or not, we need to be more open-minded about the potential benefits of exorcisms:
When it comes to mental illness, we’re starting to recognize that heavily drugging people up with medications that often have harmful side effects is not always the compassionate thing to do. There’s a woman right now that treated her own schizophrenia by talking to her voices, casting out her demons. She’s not even a Christian. (Insanitybytes)
Obviously some people will jump to a supernatural explanation where none exists, and where there is credulity there are con artists. But to reduce a little understood phenomenon to a common psychological problem can also be jumping to conclusions. If someone fits the profile of a possessed person and nothing else works, why not try? (dpmonahan)
- Some of the Christians took the opportunity to point out that the exorcisms of today often aren’t following the biblical model:
Jesus in fact did not perform “exorcisms”. Nor did any of the apostles or disciples in the Bible… They simply cast the demons out of the person, under the authority of the Name of Jesus Christ. There were no “rituals” being performed. No incantations or special water sprinkled, and CERTAINLY none of the types of things you read about in that list on the “Where’s the harm?” website, such as drowning, beating, tying people up, etc. (thetruthisstrangerthanfiction)
The rite of “exorcism” is a Roman Catholic invention and itself a satanic lie. (Tiribulus)
- Some of the Christians claimed to have personal experience of demons that had convinced them of their existence, but were unwilling to give further details:
Because I have encountered them personally, and seen that they are not simply “chemical imbalances in the brain” … “normal neurological activity” does not include speaking in languages that the individual has never learned, or speaking in a completely different voice (even different gendered voice), or reciting large swaths of information that the individual would have no way of personally knowing, etc. When a demon is truly “manifesting” it quite an “abnormal” event… (thetruthisstrangerthanfiction)
Even so, for the longest time, as a doctor and scientist, I thought demons had been entirely replaced by organic disease. Then, I had an experience that changed my mind. (anaivethinker)
- Few of the Christians (if any?) expressed much concern for the many victims of exorcisms ‘gone wrong’, involving trauma, injury and death to the victims. In my opinion, they seemed more concerned with protecting it as misunderstood and of value:
I have no idea whether or not purported cases of demonic possession are real, and I can’t speak for what may or may not happen in developing countries. You do have to keep in mind however that many Westerners who seek an exorcism have often exhausted medical options and see exorcism as a last resort, so we are not talking about a readily treatable medical condition. (dpmonahan)
I agree that it has the potential to be harmful. But, to conclude that it is always harmful is not warranted. It does not surprise me that people with naturalist prejudice would want to view it as somehow always harmful. But, if one really wanted to demonstrate that it was always harmful, you need credible data, and I have yet to see any. (anaivethinker)
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that anyone who takes science seriously would conduct research into any aspect of invisible evil spirits. Although I’d like to think such a study would knock at least a few of the arguments out of the arena, it’s more probable we would just be faced with more layers of superstitious speculation like this:
If you were a self-aware, malevolent entity with the power and desire to possess people, is it possible that you would act differently during (A) eras in which they hadn’t yet developed magnetic resonance imaging, and (B) eras in which they had developed magnetic resonance imaging? (higharka)
The best I could find is an interview with a man who sat in on over 50 exorcisms but saw no credible evidence of supernatural entities. The interview is with Christianity Today, so please note it is not biased towards my point of view.
I attended more than 50 exorcisms and never once did I walk away convinced that the person being exorcised was really demonized. I always thought that medical, cultural, and psychiatric explanations could have accounted for what was going on. But I could be wrong. And people would always say to me, “But Michael, you should have been here last week.”
The best conclusion I came across online was from Timothy C. Thomason, an associate professor at Northern Arizona University, in Possession, Exorcism and Psychotherapy:
Clearly, it is possible that people who believe themselves to be possessed by a demon may benefit in the short run from an exorcism ritual. The ritual could work as a placebo treatment, resulting in the patient feeling calmer for a while (Cuneo, 2001). But given the unreliability of spiritual healing methods, the lack of a rational foundation for supernatural beliefs, and the potential danger resulting from neglecting appropriate treatment, exorcism cannot be recommended, even for those who believe it is effective.
The best analogy I came across, which highlights the ridiculous nature of believing the supernatural only resides in gaps in our current knowledge, was from tildeb:
A plumber okay with people pretending to help by performing certain commands in the name of Jesus to clear blockages?
An electrician standing aside and going along with a person saying the magical words to fix a short circuit?
Seriously, why are you making a special exemption in medicine that (I sincerely hope) you wouldn’t go along with in any other profession?
As Ark would say, why is no-one faith healing amputees?
I still think Brandon should join the Templeton Foundation and research his demon theory, provided he actually thinks its real. I somehow doubt he does, and simply “believing” it is more secure than actually “researching” it and risk being proven wrong. Christians never jump at the opportunity to actually prove their beliefs, which kind of points to the fact they deep down they know its all nonsense.
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You’re absolutely right. He likes to think he’s so grounded in science and rational thought. A peer reviewed publication on exorcisms would be just the thing!
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And they have $2.5 BILLION in research funds just looking for projects!! They would welcome Brandon in a second, and is he is right he could prove Christianity true. That must be tempting… So I guess he does just know its nonsense and will avoid the embarrassment.
Greg chickened out too when I offered to do the alter challenge with him.
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Is that the altar challenge? They can’t do that, they’re not allowed to test their god God. But they could research how to find a way to fight demons in the material world. Because that would be godly, like finding a cure for cancer.
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I’m still talking to higharka about MRI scans and Napoleon. This could be my weirdest Blogland interaction yet.
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Savour it. Madness this pure is to be cherished 🙂
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No. I just lurked round his/her blog. It’s creepy weird crazy.
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Don’t I know it! Allalt and I took the full mystery tour with Higharka months and months ago (on Evolution) and I was transported to realms where German-speaking penguins dance samba and lived inside palaces made of lost Tupperware lids.
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That sounds fun! Must be a mushroom consumer.
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Oh, that just gave me flashbacks
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Got a great quote from SOM today that I thought you might like:
Liberalism is based on the good intentions that pave the road to hell.
Stupidity + good intentions = disaster = evil
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Golden! He’s a genius.
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Another one that I can’t quite make sense of but am impressed with nonetheless:
All the hoaxes from global warming to the War on Women, to ObamaCare are leftist hallucinations that have been successfully assigned to Christians, slave-owning Christians, Republicans, rich Republicans, white Republicans, white-Hispanic Republicans, and free market economics which is really a Christian Republican plot against the poor.
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He left out the War on Christmas.
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Hi! Many times in these blogs, I’ve seen people refer to the problem with circular thinking, like saying the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true. Uh, we can see the obvious problem with that, but when it comes to actual faith items the question of research to prove they have the real truth means that they don’t have this “faith” thing. Since all of the johnny come lately Christian groups preach that it is by faith that they are saved, researching their religion is tantamount to saying they will go to hell forever. Who would want to do that?
As far as knowing deep down that it’s all nonsense, that’s what all the fundy Islamic stuff is all about. If you make fun of the religion, then everyone else will know it’s silly too. Then they will think that the individual Muslim is silly to be one as well. Insert the religion of choice, even mine, one of our fundamental tenets is that it’s important to make fun of the religion, otherwise people would take it seriously. Can’t have that, can we? How many witches does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Depends on where you put the comma now, doesn’t it?
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Commas save lives!
“Let’s eat, Grandpa!”
“Let’s eat Grandpa!”
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A little wordy Mariah, but I think you’ve nailed it!
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I read some of those comments (from the ‘faithful’) on your last post with a mix of incredulity and amusement, Violet. Honestly, the phrase ‘bat shit crazy’ was the thought that frequently came to mind. The other one was, ‘they walk among us. . . ‘
Head shake, head shake.
Just HAD to be frank. You be Violet. . . 🙂
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Scary, isn’t it?
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I know, it’s a mental gear shift. Glad you think I’m keeping some kind of neutral tone (if that’s what you mean). I find it all quite fascinating.
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All this garbage from Christians about Demon Possession hinges largely on two things:
1.Jesus banishing demons.
2.That he was divine and/or a real historical character.
As there is no verifiable evidence for either 1 or 2 people like IB etc can be dismissed with utter contempt and impunity unless any children are involved.
Brandon should be brought up before a Medical Tribunal and/or subject to a psychological evaluation and then rigorously questioned regarding his Demon Beliefs.
These dimwits wouldn’t entertain any sort of supernatural intervention/demon crap regarding Voodoo so why do they think their Dickhead religion deserves any credibility in this regard?
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I’ve never really thought about it, Ark, but there is no mention of demonic possession or unclean spirits in the OT. Like Hell, this seems to be a mashup of other religions with Judaism. Jews would simply call all of this superstition.
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I don’t know if you’ve gone off doing religious posts Ruth, but you should do one on all the nonsense that Christians have dragged from another faith. It’s sheer misinterpretation even from their point of view – the god God is eternal after all.
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Mmm…I guess I did get a little burned out on it. I’ll get back to it, I just needed a little break from it. It felt like I sounded like a broken record. I mean, how many times can you say this shit’s messed up?
I’ll give that some thought, though. Maybe it’ll be my next religious post.
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I look forward to it! 😀
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I’m sure there’s a more diplomatic way to phrase all that. The last question in particular is an obvious one we didn’t cover in the last post. Maybe someone will be up for tackling it.
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That’s a good and valid point. Would Brandon accept a Scientologists’ diagnosis of a corrupted Thetan (demon, in other words)? I somehow doubt it.
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Is there anyone he’s still talking to that can ask the question? Maybe Keithnoback could slip that one in, from one doctor to another …
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Being a medic is not guarantee that the person shall not be silly. I have read comments by Ben Carson and know this isn’t strange. Anyone who on Sunday believes donkeys can talk to angels is silly and superstitious regardless of how good they are as a professional elsewhere
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There’s a Sunday switch in their brain. Hopefully they don’t work on weekends.
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I hope Brandon is never on call on Sunday
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Occult Practices — Deuteronomy 18
Spiritism is the belief in the existence of nonphysical beings, or spirits, that inhabit a spirit world. Mediums are used in such attempted contacts.
Jesus was both a spiritist and a medium.
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Nice quote, that would tie in nicely with Ruth’s post about how the god God’s eternal message isn’t being carried forward correctly by these silly non-Jews.
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You won’t believe this in the 21st century, but check it out —
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/1/8324707/astronauts-blessing-nasa-space-baikonur
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April Fool’s joke, right??? It’s gotta be. . .
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“The Russian cosmonauts also reportedly urinate on the back right-hand wheel of the bus that takes them to the launch pad “
OMg, I am often embarrassed to be a member of our species.
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Carmen, did you by any chance click on the link about the urine ritual?
“male astronauts are still expected to leave their bus, unzip their suits and urinate on the back right hand tyre. Suit technicians then have to redo the palaver of zipping them all up again. Female astronauts have been known to bring vials of their urine to splash on the wheel.”
I can’t stop laughing.
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No – right hand to Odin!
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Possibly the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University would be interested.
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I saw that previous post, and thought, Oh God. Nutcase Christians post no. 1502. I could’ve commented, Quakers don’t tend to believe in demons, and someone might say Quakers aren’t quite as nutty as this other lot, and someone else might say but you still believe rubbish so what makes you any better…
Hearing voices might seem like being possessed.
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That’s a very good point, Clare, hearing voices really would seem like being possessed. One of the things that I and a fellow witch in my nursing classes did when we were on psych rotation was to double check that our hearing voices type patients actually were generating said voices themselves and not actually hearing “someone” else. And no, they were always internally generated. Understand, that looking for something is not the same thing as being “sure” or “having faith” that it’s there, it’s just looking. It would be nice if there was some handy fixable thing involved, but sadly there’s not, even meds are not a handy fix, just sometimes a patch.
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Clare, I quite enjoy your comments. You seem to have a lot of insight into the craziness of religion, yet you still abide by some of it. Are you sure you don’t want to join us atheists on the darkside? Sometimes it seems like you might be leaning our way…maybe. I’d still like you either way, though. 🙂
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My spirituality tag gives my views on religion, positive and negative. in the Quaker meeting, I have the religious experiences of being moved to speak, and finding Unity of the meeting. Some have a materialist explanation for these experiences.
It is also political. DP Monahan, whom you might have come across, sometimes says things I find sensible and interesting from a conservative viewpoint, though I am on the Left. Yet he cited this article portraying Christianity as a persecuted sect in the US. There is a Christian left, emphasising such verses as,
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones
and has lifted up the lowly
He has filled the hungry with good things
and the rich he has sent empty away.
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I have several friends who are Quakers, and before my collapse into atheism, I strongly considered becoming one…alas I could not hold up the pretext that there was a god. I find the quakers to be very open minded and can handle them much easier than the other denominations.
Every now and again I find certain christians do say things that are quite reasonable…but then usually some very unreasonable things come up shortly after. I suppose there can never be a real peace between us…however the upside is we get to have all this stimulating intellectual discourse between each other.
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Unreasonable things come up. Mmm. You will have ideas about why someone becomes or remains Christian, based on your own experience. Are they all ridiculous? Can you imagine that someone might be Christian for good reasons, even if you can’t imagine what they might be? Alternatively, I could accept that you will disrespect things I find valuable, and you could accept that I value things you find ridiculous, and explore our areas of agreement, and try to explore these areas of disagreement by more than mere assertion.
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I just read your spirituality page, and like that you’ve laid it all out there. Unfortunately it sounds like your goal is to reclaim atheists for jesus. That would be one of the unreasonable things I was just talking about.
I was a christian myself for over four decades, so I can easily see why someone would be one. Christians were the ones who found ME unacceptable to god (with all the disability in my life and my son’s life, surely I was being punished for something awful I’d done). I thank them though…they pushed me to really examine the idea of god, and I found it to be lacking.
I guess we’ll continue to agree to disagree.
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You were being punished for sin? Job is the answer to that. That is the argument of Job’s comforters, and after further humiliating Job God tells them to ask Job to pray for them, saying they are wrong.
Christianity ought to be better than that. Christians ought to be better than that.
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Catholics have a slightly different take on Job…it’s all about joining in with the suffering of the cross. This suffering is deserved, and some of us get more of it because we displeased god in various ways (though Job didn’t do anything in particular to deserve it).
“Christianity ought to be better than that. Christians ought to be better than that.”
But it’s not, and they aren’t.
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[Waves.} Hello!
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Hello Clare. I was just extolling your virtues in another post on Violet’s blog (I think it’s her most recent, but I’m losing track). It was nothing bad…I was just saying how much I appreciated that you could write a clear, cohesive sentence, which makes it much easier to have a conversation with you. Some of the others here are a little less orderly with their words. Good day to you!
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Sometimes, I even manage a paragraph.
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Just in case you did not get it:
I said: Christianity ought to be better than that. Christians ought to be better than that.
You said: But it’s not, and they aren’t.
So I waved. I’m here! Implying- what about me? Do you include me in that?
I have been writing sentences since primary school. I understand how to place subject and verb, and other parts in them. I do not feel hugely flattered by your gracious compliment.
I have reasons for being a Christian, and I dare to hope that they are not all ridiculous or neurotic, and possibly in maturing into being atheist you have not matured beyond all my reasons and ways of being.
The friendly-sounding words and mild contempt get a little wearing.
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Wow Clare. I was not being sarcastic or contemptful with you…at least that was not my intention. I was reading some of higharka’s comments, and was just thankful someone here could write well and have a reasonable discussion.
I understand you have good reasons for being a christian. I was one for 41 years and genuinely understand why someone would be one. I’m just not anymore for very specific reasons, which you probably think are ridiculous and neurotic. Fortunately you’re free to think what you want, and I’m free to not care.
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You see I don’t think you ridiculous. I observe good reasons to become atheist. Could we skype this? Or Firefox Hello?
That I can write a coherent sentence is, to me, such faint praise that it does seem vaguely contemptuous.
I said that those Christians were wrong to ascribe your suffering to sin, and should know better. We should be better than that. You said “they aren’t”. I am sorry to be pedantic, but “they” here includes me.
I wish you well. I hold you in respect.
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Dear Violet and Clare
You both seem to be constantly misunderstanding each other, so I’ll give you a link to a great post with 6 brilliant steps to effective online dialogue. I hope you find them of interest. 🙂
https://pretentiousape.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/why-havent-christian-apologists-picked-up-this/
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Dear Violet and Clare
You both seem to be constantly misunderstanding each other, so I’ll give you a link to a great post with 6 brilliant steps to effective online dialogue. I hope you find them of interest. 🙂
https://pretentiousape.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/why-havent-christian-apologists-picked-up-this/
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Meet Dick. This needs a disclaimer: I am not implying that anyone here is like this.
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I’m not sure if I should mock this, take it out of context or be absolutely furious! :angry:
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Thanks for the link Violet on effective online communication, but as far as online feuds go, the one between Clare and I is about as minor as you can get. I’ve seen plenty worse communication from many of your other members here, with much nastier arguments than I have ever been involved in. So I’m not entirely sure why you feel this one is so bad that Clare and I need lessons on how to communicate?
Clare, I don’t think there’s a need to skype or work this out. As far as I’m concerned, this is a very minor blip of things I deal with during my day. I do not look at you with disrespect…we hold different stances on religion, and that’s fine. I tried to give a compliment but was not clear enough in the delivery, and it was taken the wrong way. I apologize.
All of us are adults here, is there a reason we simply can’t just move on?
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Did you read the 6 points? I think they’re great! They make me think every time I go back to them. Maybe I care more if you and Clare understand each other, but it was meant tongue-in-cheek in any case.
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Yes, mom, I read the six points. 🙂
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Which was your favourite? 😉
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I liked them all Vi. I was a psychiatric nurse and taught classes on effective communication several times a week. Of course “reflecting back” is one of the more important steps, but that becomes rather tedious on an internet forum. It could be argued that it’s more important on this forum over others, considering the fiery nature of the conversations here. Then again, if I didn’t like fiery conversations, I wouldn’t be here.
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Clare, after reading through our treasure trove of miscommunication yesterday, I see I never answered your sincere question of “What about me?” I’m sure this question would be asked by many liberal christians who aren’t so quick to condemn and judge. Here’s my answer:
I can’t say I have a huge problem with liberal christians. Unfortunately many christians aren’t liberal, and as you go more conservative, the nuttery starts to get pretty high (as it was in my catholic church). I have to balance how much good is being done by religion versus how much bad. In my community/family/circles I see way more bad, and therefore feel I must take a stand against it. Had I been involved with more liberal christians from the start I probably never would have been driven to become an antitheist.
One might ask if this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Yes, I kind of think it is. Yet the harm done by whacko religions is severe…the harm done to me was awful. If you’ve never experienced this kind of harm, I can understand how you’d think being an antitheist is way over-reacting. My perspective is different though due to my experiences, and that’s what I have to go on when deciding whether or not I can support religion at all. Is it black and white thinking to say all religion must go? Yeah. Yet I the injury from religion should not be shrugged off casually, especially if you’ve never experienced it, and I will do what I can to stop it.
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I have done a whole post on this.
I observe that there are Christians who want to drive out gays from the church, even if we are celibate, and Christians who want us to be celibate but will tolerate us in the church. I find the second position unacceptable, but observe that people holding it may say useful things to the complete homophobes, persuading them to moderate their position; and that the complete homophobes find it easier to hear that from such celibacy advocates than from me. Change comes from within.
I was driven out of my Anglican church, but had already found Quakers. And when I went back to my Anglican church two years later for a wedding, I was welcomed.
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Clare, I’m not sure I can totally embrace your ideas about moderation, but I do see your point and think it’s a good one. One tiny counterpoint: if there was no religion, you would not have had a HUGE source of homophobia to contend with at all. Imagine that kind of freedom! That said, it’s very unlikely religion will ever go completely away, and so we must be practical…and maybe consider moderating our views if we can. I don’t feel I can do that right now considering what I’ve just been through, but who knows what the future will hold.
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And, it is a category, actually, not a page: my most recent posts on that category are laid out there.
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Hi, Clare. Nice to have you as the voice of a reasonable Christian in these conversations. It easily seems, judging by the Christians who come to, or even sometimes are invited to such discussions as this with atheists, that all Christians are right wing nutjobs and totalist fundamentalists, or even if they are not quite that, when pushed about the absurdities of the anciet story they take for granted as part of their cultural heritage, under stress they reveal a true hide wich is more fundist, than one would have expected. But not you 🙂 .
I know a lot of reasonable and good willing Christians, and people of other religious affiliations. To me it just seems they are wrong about the one, or two things about reality, that play a much greater part in their lives, than in mine. Most Christians I personally know do not believe in demon posession, nor do they seem to have any innate need to defend the primitive elements of the Bible. The fundies seem to think that the liberal Christians are all wrong and vice versa in their interpretation of what is good, or not and same applies between the oh so many denominations. For me the trouble of any religious revelations in scriptures and otherwise is exactly, that they seem to not work as a moral guide line, if one has corrupt morals, but that the average good willing person is perfectly able to find humane goals from such texts and emotional sources like prayer. It makes it all seem like there are no gods. Perhaps, if there really is a god, or several, that god is, or gods, are testing us, not so much wether if we beleive in any particular god concept, but if we really are willing to take responsibility of each other with what little free will we do posses. It would certainly be a nice thought, that there is a greater lesson for us to be learned about taking care of each other, regardless of wich religion people bow down to or not.
The article you referred to as cited by DP is a perfect example of the pittfalls of conservatism. I hope we can agree upon as much? Conservatism certainly has it’s place when the logic of do not try to fix it if it is not broken applies, but the conservatist mind does seem unable to overcome the simple question, what to do when something is broken and has been broken, but that it being broken does not bother them personally. A sort of romanticism of the ruins, or merely the fear of the unknown ahead of us. Social issues as discussed in the article are not mere opinions, nor are they about a political bargain wether it is the time for the progressives to get their way or the conservatives, though they are presented as such in the article. Such issues should not be evaluated on the grounds, that since we always done it this way we should not change our modus operandi, but on an evaluation of actual harm and benefit to the society. The conservative who is emotionally committed to the cause, seems in time to be able to come up with all sorts of excuses for social harms of changing culture, but I sense there a bit of a dishonesty, since for him, it was enough, that the change itself was wrong, rather than that he was originally at all interrested on the social reprecussions of the change any more than to change what was ethically questionable about the traditions. Or am I missing something here? I am asking you, because I am not quite sure yet and I trust you have a bit different angle to mine…
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The Conservative party in Britain is a loose coalition of different views. I think it possible to hold conservative views believing they are for the good of the community: that wealth creation by individuals benefits all, creates jobs and trickles down, so those individuals should be freed. I don’t agree: rather than trickle down, we have gush up of wealth, or the trickle- point leaks have been fixed; but some believe it. Also, hedge funds accumulate wealth while doing nothing to create it, causing direct harm.
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Did you watch the debate last night? I thought it was surprisingly good, really enjoyed having a panel like that with some women for a change. Think it made a real difference. It really showed up Cameron and Miliband as being actor politicians with painful set pieces and bad coaching. Nicola Sturgeon did a great job for convincing me to maybe vote SNP, something I would never have considered before.
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I have not watched all of it yet. I think Nicola Sturgeon did well. Farage saying he would recalculate Barnett shows what he thinks of Scotland.
I anticipate a grand coalition of Labour and Conservative. I don’t think either of them will have enough seats to make any other coalition practicable.
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Are you voting Green? They’re an option too.
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I am. See today’s post, actually.
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You may enjoy this blog, which I found through a comment here, referring to the Bible yet believing in reincarnation. Her blend of wackiness and certainty is right up your street.
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I followed, but the blog is difficult to read and that comment is seriously dense. Can’t concentrate on that long a paragraph at this time of night …
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Thanks for the insight. What is conservative depends on the society. Or what are the traditional values of the society. For example here in Finland it is allready somewhat conservative to defend the wellfare society. In Russia, it is conservative to follow the strong leader and so forth…
Traditionally our conservative parties have grabbed the votes of the enterpeneurs, but in reality a lot of smaller businesses have benefited from socialist politics, while the conservatives have concentrated on making the big business get on better. Here it seems, especially now under elections, everybody agrees that the enterpeneurship needs to be helped so that the social wellfare can be upheld. What they disagree upon is the methods of how to achieve this.
Privatizing government owned and even profitable services is what our right wing drives for from ideological reasons, even though all surveys and indipendend research to the subject seems to indicate what the initial reaction it being a costly choise for the society to be true, as it only makes the services poor for most people and draws the money out to tax-paradises. To me it seems as if they have either lost their sense of reality on this matter because of idealism, or that some of them are very dishonest in actually being able to make personal gain in the processes. Possibly both. For example, since the railway company was privatized, it has become increasingly expensive to ride a train, often ridiculously expensive, while at the same time the trains are notoriously often late because there are not enough personnel to run the trafic, but us the taxpayers are still paying for the infrastructure.
Our rightwing polititicians want to cut the debt and our left wing wants to give stimulus to the economics. Now, us common voters are supposed to second guess wich might be the better way to act in a threatening depression…
A few years back more politically inclined Christians here organized into what they call a Christian Democratic party. It is a ridiculously small party, but as it has radicalized during past years, it’s leading politician has caused, with her attacks against the LGTB and other minorities, and even against some values we allready hold traditional in our society, like abortion rights, waves of people to exit the state Lutheran church. Wich is kind of funny and even sad, since the church is very liberal and the archibishop has several times stood against these political minority extrimist Christians, wich in turn causes such extreme Lutherans to exit the church in roves.
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“It easily seems, judging by the Christians who come to, or even sometimes are invited to such discussions as this with atheists, that all Christians are right wing nutjobs and totalist fundamentalists”
You’re right Raut. I think it’s because most liberal/normal Christians don’t want to get into angry discussions (as they so often become) about their faith. It’s understandable. Also, the topics of many atheist posts are about the harm done by the nutjob end of the Christian belief spectrum, so the nutjobs come in to defend their damaging beliefs.
Similarly, most atheists go about their normal life with no reference to religion at all, and wouldn’t dream of bothering to enter these kind of discussions.
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Indeed. Perhaps, we who see the folly of religious beliefs are too often drawn to expect them to have a lot bigger impact on society, than they actually do. Do not get me wrong. Religion plays a big role and in some societies ever increasingly so. But often it is only a tool, or an excuse to do those harmfull things rather than the real reason. What should be obvious to all, is that no gods seem very interrested in religions being used for crap ever, not even when the adherents of religious sects have totally opposite understanding of what is crap. To the extremists, their own gods are feeble entities as their own identity and in constant need of protection even by lashing out violently. But ultimately the values promoted by religions are totally dependant on the surrounding society either complying them, or in opposition to them.
Even in a progressive society religions follow the cultural values of the surrounding society, only with a bit of a delay, and often try to downshift the progress. Because it makes ignorant people scared. Not all progress is for the better, but the harm in religion is, that the method to evaluate wether this, or that change is for better, or worse, has been handed over to demagogues whose social power is based on their evaluation of the fears of the most scared and ignorant part of the population and they can make up what ever nonsense and give it an authorative sense by appealing to some obscure scriblings from past times. Of course, similar phenomenons also works in democratic politics when a populist politician appears, but such a politician needs to become a religious demagogue to present equal authority from them divines. How often are the nationalist agendas and religious agendas mixed as both play on the ignorance, fears and identity of the people?
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Could I interrupt long enough to ask any US citizens to consider signing this petition to repeal the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)? While you’re there, note that there’s another petition to deny Federal funds for religious schools – you might want to consider that too.
http://cqrcengage.com/secular/app/sign-petition?0&engagementId=89787
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Nice post, thanks! Because it’s Easter and you are fascinated by demons, VW, I posted a twist on the concept in Useful Idiot. Hope you enjoy!
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I like the idea of a useful idiot, never heard of that before. I don’t really understand the post. You’re one of those people who uses English but speaks a different language to me. Must be related to the hole in my brain that can’t process poetry.
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Well, if you didn’t grok that post, then maybe try my Easter Saturday Sermon, written for atheists and believers. Happy Sunday!
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