[ SECRET POST #360 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #360 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 08 pages, 192 secrets from Secret Submission Post #052.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 linked back to the page ] broken links, [ 1 2 ] not!secrets, [ 1? 2? ] not!fandom, [ 1 2 3 ] repeats, [ 1 ] probably not for real.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 1st, 2008.
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[dorknessrising.livejournal.com]

It's a passive-aggressive, patronizing way of pushing your beliefs onto others. "I fear something HORRENDOUSLY BAD will happen to you when you die unless you convert to my religion" may not be as effective as threats of burning at the stake, but it's still an attempt at fear-mongering manipulation, and thus positively disgusting.

Besides, how exactly do you read that secret -- "I write characters as Christians because I don't want to picture my favorite characters going to Hell" -- as anything but "Non-Christians all go to Hell?"

[queenie-z.livejournal.com]

What's positively disgusting is your cynical generalization. I can't believe that someone could be so paranoid and jaded as to say that everyone who claims to worry about their loved ones' afterlives is secretly manipulating them into converting. I'm both insulted and full of pity that you would have such little faith in people.

My journal has an essay on the subject in its most recent post, if you would care to read it and clear up the misconceptions you have about our faith. Or don't - God gave us all free will for a reason.

[dorknessrising.livejournal.com]

Honey? I was raised Catholic. I understand exactly what you're saying, and I still think it's narrow-minded asshattery. It's rhetoric such as yours that made me go Agnostic.

Other people's afterlives, rather than their lives here on Earth, are none of your bloody business. Because as much as you and your religion likes to think otherwise, unless you actually have died and come back to tell the story you don't know what happens afterward. For all you know, every religion is a sham and there's no such thing as an "afterlife."

I don't know what happens when we die, either. Nor do I really care, because I view my life here on earth as far more important than whatever happens to me after I'm put in the ground. But I'm not the one claiming I do know the answer, and that people who don't agree with me are doomed to eternal suffering.

[queenie-z.livejournal.com]

I didn't start this discussion to start a fight, but I honestly don't appreciate you belittling the God that I believe was responsible for allowing me to speak when doctors said I couldn't, the God who comforted my Mother when she thought I would be severely Autistic, the God who used a video game to save me from my own depression. I believe in God because I feel His presence in my life - which brings me to my next point.

No one can KNOW what happens after you die. But those of us who aren't jaded cynics are capable of a little something called faith. Faith is not following a doctrine blindly. Faith is placing trust in something you can't prove, but know is there because of what it's done. And to say that I and millions of other believers are purposefully using our faith to manipulate people is just as insulting and narrow-minded as you claim we are.

[dorknessrising.livejournal.com]

And to say that I and millions of other believers are purposefully using our faith to manipulate people is just as insulting and narrow-minded as you claim we are.

See icon.

That's not being narrow-minded, that's knowing the facts. Go read a history book sometime. It's what believers of your faith have been doing since said faith's inception.

[case]

"lulz, humans have been being idiots ever since humans were made. Go read a history book sometime. Therefore, you must be doing it too! Right now!"

Oh please. Generalizations much? I doubt queenie_z is trying to MANIPULATE YOU AS WE SPEAK just because she's narrow-minded and disgusting and evil like that.

[queenie-z.livejournal.com]

All Muslims are terrorists. All Germans are Nazis. All Christians are manipulative.

Notice a trend? And you call me narrow-minded.

[case]

HAHAHA thought-sync

[sarajayechan.livejournal.com]

Don't forget all Jews are money-grubbing whores! And all feminists are EVIL CUNTY BITCHES!

[case]

PS - ALL MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[karel]

Go read a history book sometime. It's what believers of your faith have been doing since said faith's inception.

And America was started as a British colony. Guess what? We're not, anymore. And guess what? Not everyone was exactly in favor of the crusades, the witch trials, etc. Vocal minority, in some cases -- widespread hysteria in others.

Ask most Christians today and they'll say that the Crusades were a Bad Idea and not at all how we'd like to be remembered. Of course there are extremists. Every group of people has them. But it's ridiculous to base an entire group on what the people who are overzealous do.

[megkips.livejournal.com]

Er. Not really. Pardon my major here, but early Christianity WAS a persecuted minority up until Constantine converted and made it the offical religion of the Roman empire. Moreover there was no UNIFORM Christianity until the same time. You had proto-orthodoxy, you had gnostics, you had Jewish-Christians and probably even more sects that have been lost to the sands of time. And even then it took the church fathers a couple hundred years to agree on the canon, basic doctrine etc. because of the immense diversity of the religion!

The claim that "It's what believers of your faith have been doing since the faith's inception" shows a clear LACK of understanding of Christian history.

[queenie-z.livejournal.com]

Off topic but DUDE I LOVE YOUR ICON. ♥

[kinneas.livejournal.com]

I didn't interpret anything you said here as an attack, and I'm not offended, so this is a genuine question:

Do you follow the pervasive belief that to be an atheist, one must as a prerequisite be a "jaded cynic"?

Again, not picking a fight (for once).

[case]

... it's narrow minded asshattery to worry about your friends? Enlighten me, because I don't see it.

Sure, it's narrow minded, passive aggressive asshattery to be like OH NOES, YOU MUST CONVERT OR I WILL GUILT TRIP YOU INTO OBLIVION. But no one's doing that. All they're saying is, "I believe in this thing and therefore I worry about you because I believe that something bad might happen if you keep going the way you are. However, I can't force you to change." How's that different from "I don't think that boyfriend is good for you, and I worry that bad things may happen. But if you're happy, then you're happy."

I'm not Christian, by the way. But I can see where they're coming from, and you're taking all this way too personally/seeing attacks that aren't there.

[dorknessrising.livejournal.com]

We're not talking about staying with a potentially abusive boyfriend, here. We're talking about being worried about someone because they don't happen to share the same abstract belief as you do. Other people's faith or lack thereof? None of your business.

[case]

Other people's relationships? None of your business either.

Does that mean that people can't worry? No. We're only talking about somebody's emotions here, not actions. You cannot FORCE somebody NOT to worry about you, because you cannot control their emotions, sorry.

Do I worry about people because they're major pessimists? Yes. Because I'm an optimist. When people see the terrible sides of things ALL THE TIME, I worry that they're going to become depressed, etc. Do I know this will happen? No. Can I still worry? Yes. "Life is good" and "life is bad" are abstract beliefs, yes?

[queenie-z.livejournal.com]

Pessimism worries me too. I just want the people I care about to be happy, and it's hard when you think on the bad side all the time.

[queenie-z.livejournal.com]

It's not like I keep pestering my friends to change their beliefs. I don't have that power or that right. I just pray that if they don't come to know Christ that they'll be happy anyway.

[karel]

Other people's faith or lack thereof? None of your business.

Technically, nothing about anyone's life is any of your business. No, really. It isn't. But do you ever worry about a close friend that's going through a tough emotional time? Do you ever mention to a friend that you don't think what they're currently doing with their life isn't really a great idea?

Good job -- you, too, have just butted into something that's "none of your business" for the sake of worry.

So long as you're not forcing it on someone, you're allowed to worry about someone and their state, whether it be religion or otherwise, all you like.

[(Anonymous)]

On the other hand, if said friend is frequently bursting into tears for seemingly no reason or often shows up with a black eye as a result of 'falling down the stairs' you kind of have proof that there's something in their life that hurts them.

However, since there is no proof for or against any kind of afterlife it becomes a bit harder to say that 'not being insert-religion-here' hurts them (or is going to).

[karel]

you don't know what happens afterward. For all you know, every religion is a sham and there's no such thing as an "afterlife."

And for all you know, there is. I honestly don't see why people even bother debating religion in all seriousness because honesty? Even being an atheist takes faith. Faith that there isn't an afterlife. And faith is just that -- a belief in something that you can't prove. You can't prove that there is or isn't an afterlife. You can't prove that there is or isn't a god.

Re: Coffee icon teim!

[case]

Okay, that's going a little far, try to keep it to the debate please?

[dots.livejournal.com]

Okay, I really don't want to touch this argument with a 51 and a half foot pole, but nobody else has said it, so why not?

You being "enlightened" and "raised Catholic" and having "seen the light," or whatever you want to call you, doesn't give you a one way ticket to asshattery. It doesn't make you any better than people who are still religious, and your smug attitude and seeming belief that it does isn't winning your argument any solid ground to stand on, quite frankly. Neither side of this argument has any real solid ground -- sure, she can't prove she's right, but you can't prove she's wrong -- so it's a bad metaphor to use, but really.