It is the tendency for people raised
religiously very young, who reject religion on their own thinking and without
being persuaded to do so…. To, in time, develop a very hostile and harmful attitude of
superiority towards religious people & religion in general, and a disdain for
any influence it has on society at large. This stems from having necessarily put so much thought into ALL related parts of what essentially makes up the bedrock of your entire world view. Not a light and breezy topic. I know all about this tendency
because I have it very, very strongly, and its hard to remember sometimes that A)
I used to be the person I find myself nearly helpless but to feel a combination
of pity/disgust/disdain/sorrow for their not being able to break free of the
crutch... and B) That even though you are certain that religion is a net negative for all of the human race, and that it just DESTROYS society after human society and pollutes men's ability to think clearly…and so on and so forth…(You can see how easily I slip into that mode, just for access to a quick way to be descriptive in my explanation)--- You HAVE to realize that only people that have deeply explored both sides this coin and who have believed both at one point or other, have done the amount of thinking you have on it.
We make a grave mistake when we wholesale reject a viewpoint
that isn’t as luxuriously black and white in its ostensible morality, we still tend to reject the people who are partial to it in the same way we would people who fit the profile of something much more patently black-and-white in its rejectability for which you find no compelling reason not to be utterly disdainful or loathesome towards: (AKA “Violent Misogynists”,
or “Hate Crime Perpetrators”, "Pedophiles", or "Unremorseful, Anti-social Psychopaths/Serial Killers/Etc." — To be firmly and strongly opposed to allowing these people any compassion is to simply reflect the only acceptable
choice one can have as a member of a society built on cooperative achievement and mutual trust.
Got a problem with violent jihadism? Join the enormous, gigantic club. But,
when our behavior reflects that we feel this kind of distaste and have assigned
this kind of blanket emotional rejection of another group of people who have
chosen to classify themselves by a label that is far more ambiguous in its moral
clarity, as if it only consisted entirely of things which we feel no
appreciation, love, or tolerance for, we unfortunately become PRECISELY the
thing to which we MOST disdain about people who have rejected everybody else and condemned them for not being adherents of the same belief system.
We
most disdain being caught up in a belief system that actively encourages
religiously condoned prejudice, and which encourages religiously based discrimination
and denial of civil liberties while absolving themselves of any blame by
invoking as a justification, God’s agreeance with their own disturbingly
inappropriate interpretation of religious text. Despite the fact that you can be personally,
fairly certain in your belief system, once you patently reject any possibility
of your own strongly held certainties *POSSIBLY* being wrong, then you
reach a point where you exhibit disdain for others not as clearly “advanced”, “evolved”
or as “intelligent” as you have decided your beliefs have proven you to be. You've simply switched faiths but maintained no higher level of evolution in your manner and understanding of others. In short, you are one of the people who absolutely inspire hatred among the religious for your patent dismissal as foolish and ricidulous the things which they hold as most near and dear to them.
When
you are as smugly certain that only foolishness resides in the beliefs you once
held. You tend to forget that belief is not actually REALLY a choice. Belief is
the ultimate logical and necessary end that your brain has to come to, after
its path has travelled enough mileage on both sides of an argument to be
helpless but for you to discover that a decision has been made, that you didn’t
really have a choice in. Because the religious necessarily safeguard their own
minds from potential sources of doubt which might lead to disbelief, and even
police their own thought processes in an automatic, lifelong pursuit of a
mistaken belief that by avoiding thinking about the alternative entirely, you
can maintain true belief based on your ignorance to anything else all together.
Its only the people that have put real, unashamed, unobstructed thought into
both sides of a situation that are truly allowed to stake out the claim that
they BELIEVE something, because to believe, truthfully, is to wholeheartedly
immerse oneself into finding anything with validity pertaining to the subject
at hand. If you fear questioning your own beliefs because of the limp wristed
excuse that the devil might get the better of you and you’ll spiral into a
morally devoid character with no real faith remaining, then it shows the extent
to which you’ve successfully left any REAL attempt at learning what you REALLY
believe, supplanting it with a sustained, doomed to fail attempt at excluding
any thought OTHER then one of belief in Religion A.
That is not belief. It just
showcases a talent for being so good at lying to yourself that for years, you
can really think that you believe what you profess to believe, not realizing
that until you allow your critical thinking cap to fully run the numbers on all
choices, with all information unimpeded and unbiased, then you cannot claim to
really believe what you believe you believe, and make a believably convincing
argument that will compel somebody who has done the requisite footwork in
critical thinking. They cannot help but sniff out your fearful lack of a mental
counterpoint, because once you’ve sorted all this out for yourself, the
confidence your argument inherently possesses doesn’t rely on insistent talking
points, lacking the depth one gets when they really struggle with a question of
this magnitude. When you know what all the cards in a deck are, inside and out,
its super easy to spot a poker player who has only played with decks with dupe
after dupe of all red face cards. Its impossible to fake the comprehensive,
personal awareness of all aspects of the hand your opponent might deal you if
you’ve never been willing to accept that unless you learn about all the cards,
your system of spiritual choice-deprivation only plays well when you’re
debating with the choir. Not someone from outside of it altogether
Once you recognize that THIS is reality,
like it or not, then you MUST logically recognize that if you don’t
respectfully, and with a willingness to be accomodative to the fact that your
debate partner isn’t CAPABLE of debating their point on the merits, yet, until
you have convinced them they cannot truly hold a belief as near and dear, until they are
willing to explore the foundation and depth of their belief, and have been willing to subject it to their critical, doubtful mind and explored other possible paths of interest.
Your
goal, as a thoughtful person, is not to alienate and increase the vastness of
the moat which divides you and the people of other persuasion in their beliefs,
the way they do to you. Rather, you only enforce their certainty of the
wrongness they associate with the stereotype everyone has for the “militant
atheist”—and once you’ve enforced that as your own label, you’ve become your
professed enemy—to a T.
Rather then show disdain for your fellow
man’s belief system because you find it primitive and pathetic, PROVE to them
that your belief system is a classy and intelligently rigourous, ethical one to
be in, by being able to politely articulate what in your beliefs compel your
disagreement about certain points in theirs. Be able to explain, I know there
is no way to be 100% certain of either of our POV, on this, so please know,
that Im only defining what, to me, is the most compelling argument, when I
strip the fear away, and unabashedly dig into what I really can’t help but
believe to be the truth. You will like
yourself more, and represent your class of belief system much better for ALL
the others who share it with you, instead of enforcing the divide by dismissing
religious people as unevolved buffoons.
It makes YOU and the person you debate
with better people, both, for providing you both with a mandate, and a
reference point for unconditional respect and civility, even in the face of
beliefs you clearly find foolish. And you may just convince somebody to run the
rigorous self-assessment on their own faith and thinking and the strength and
personal logic of their underlying beliefs---which would then mean that you
have compelled your fellow man to do something for themselves that they have
always needed to do, but never had the courage to carry out. And this means,
whatever the outcome, that you’ve done them a HUGE service and is, on its own,
enough to encourage self-sustaining, patterned behavior which is founded in
respect and understanding, when debating agnosticism/atheism, with somebody who
believes they can reject your view in favor of theism.
Its only if people represent an inherent capacity for understanding and politeness in explainingly beguilingly compelling reasons for a person to question their own beliefs, that we can say we display BETTER
moral courage, decency, & respectful behavior, not to mention make a more solid claim to empathy and sympathy and understanding of others, and the
current limits of what others CAN believe. We are trying to first expand THOSE
limits in any discussion or debate, knowing the rest will follow on its own if you can. Otherwise, we’re
only becoming our own worst enemy and doomed to be perpetuating the worst kind of partisan BS,
forever & ever & ever.....
Amen.
"The guy they had just met was very strange. He certainly seemed to make and keep his own schedule."
