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On religion, or the general lack of it
Aug. 18th, 2007 08:49 amGot a friend request on Myspace from an atheist group. (I haven't made any posts about religion there, so I assume they found me due to my clicking the 'agnostic' option on the profile sidebar)
Looked around the site a bit and decided not to join . . . for one, I'm an agnostic, not an atheist, which means I have no idea one way or the other and I hope I don't find out for quite some time. After all, I still have books to write, a family to worry, and a child to corrupt soon. ;-)
Also, they have in their info stuff about 'promoting atheism in the community' and 'providing people with the information and guidance they need to choose atheism and live healthy, God-free lives' and that kindof makes me twitchy.
Not that I don't understand the need to get information out there about how people who don't believe in God are not evil subhuman freaks. And keep in mind my perspective on this partly comes from growing up in the Bible Belt, specifically in an area where you can't drive 200 feet on the highway without encountering a "Choose God or BURN" type of sign. Though thankfully, I've only seen that particular quote once. Most of them are along the lines of 'Smile! Your mom chose life!' which are equally eyeroll-worthy to me, but for slightly different reasons. Anyway. . .
Letting people know that "hey, I'm an atheist and no, I haven't kicked any puppies today" is one thing. Giving people info specifically to help them choose atheism is something else entirely. It reminds me too much of the people who'll knock on your door at some way-too-early hour and try to convince you to go to their church. One's trying to get you to believe in their version of God, the other hopes you'll choose not to believe at all, and once it gets to that point what's the difference?
I've always thought of faith as a private thing, something between you and what you believe in (which is partly why people pushing for laws that affect everyone based on their religious beliefs never fail to make me snarly). And while I've had plenty of religious discussions with my friends and family, they've never tried to convince me to become a Christian and I've never tried to convince them that they should switch to agnosticism.
Hopefully I'm making sense, because it's before noon and therefore too early for me to be up, but it basically boils down to "Here's what I think and why" and "Here's what you should think and why" being two completely different approaches.
Looked around the site a bit and decided not to join . . . for one, I'm an agnostic, not an atheist, which means I have no idea one way or the other and I hope I don't find out for quite some time. After all, I still have books to write, a family to worry, and a child to corrupt soon. ;-)
Also, they have in their info stuff about 'promoting atheism in the community' and 'providing people with the information and guidance they need to choose atheism and live healthy, God-free lives' and that kindof makes me twitchy.
Not that I don't understand the need to get information out there about how people who don't believe in God are not evil subhuman freaks. And keep in mind my perspective on this partly comes from growing up in the Bible Belt, specifically in an area where you can't drive 200 feet on the highway without encountering a "Choose God or BURN" type of sign. Though thankfully, I've only seen that particular quote once. Most of them are along the lines of 'Smile! Your mom chose life!' which are equally eyeroll-worthy to me, but for slightly different reasons. Anyway. . .
Letting people know that "hey, I'm an atheist and no, I haven't kicked any puppies today" is one thing. Giving people info specifically to help them choose atheism is something else entirely. It reminds me too much of the people who'll knock on your door at some way-too-early hour and try to convince you to go to their church. One's trying to get you to believe in their version of God, the other hopes you'll choose not to believe at all, and once it gets to that point what's the difference?
I've always thought of faith as a private thing, something between you and what you believe in (which is partly why people pushing for laws that affect everyone based on their religious beliefs never fail to make me snarly). And while I've had plenty of religious discussions with my friends and family, they've never tried to convince me to become a Christian and I've never tried to convince them that they should switch to agnosticism.
Hopefully I'm making sense, because it's before noon and therefore too early for me to be up, but it basically boils down to "Here's what I think and why" and "Here's what you should think and why" being two completely different approaches.
