Freedomain Radio

I'm constintly going through different phases of what/how I think about God and Religion.
Sometimes I see it as ridiculous and foolish.
Sometimes I see it as a remote possibility.
Sometimes I think believers are justified.
Sometimes I think they're blind.

Lately, I see most religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, the same way most people see other superstitions.
When I see a person praying, or doing anything religious, I now think of Jack Nicholson's character in "As Good As It Gets"

How do you guys think about it?

When I see someone praying or doing something religious I mostly feel pity,sadness,helplessness,dread,sorrow and eventually relief that it is not me.

When I see something like Jesus Camp,God Hates America,or some mega-church preacher I mostly feel actual nausea and seething hate.

V CADD:

When I see someone praying or doing something religious I mostly feel pity,sadness,helplessness,dread,sorrow and eventually relief that it is not me.

When I see something like Jesus Camp,God Hates America,or some mega-church preacher I mostly feel actual nausea and seething hate.

I felt the same watching Jesus Camp.
I alternated between wanting to vomit and wanting to cry the whole time.

 I think instead of seething hate I meant contemptuous disgust.

A few weeks ago, when I was at work, one of the employees had her hands clasped together and started whispering a long prayer before eating lunch. She did it in a way that made me think she was trying to be really obvious about it to the people around her. I felt angry at her parents and all the people who messed her up, and it makes me angry about my own religious upbringing.

There is a predisposition in human brain for unsubstantiated beliefs, more in some than in others, and apparently genetically inheritable.

I am as atheistic as they come - never in my life having the least doubt about it.

Yet I found myself strangely uncomfortable faced with common superstitions - like spilling salt, breaking a mirror, having a black cat cross my path, etc.. I have never ever believed in such stuff and yet felt strong urge to act upon them. I didn't, nothing bad happened yet the urge remained - for decades.

Relatively recently I figured out that there is just some unconscious part of my brain that keeps track of those things and fires a (distracting) emotion of discomfort for a short while. A sub-personality, if you will, that probably serves some vital functions besides making nonsense. Maybe it has something to do with obsessive behaviors, of which Tourette's is an extreme.

Armed with that knowledge, I can now perform the "ritual" (knock on the wood, etc.) - not afraid to slide down the path of irrationality, but merely to throw a bone to that pesky sub-personality and shut down the emotion, rather than have it distract me and potentially interrupt my train of thought. Like scratching an itch.

Now, if someone as skeptical and open-minded as I am has issues with emotional discomfort, I imagine in some people it can just be unbearable...

Another thing, besides the superstition about a broken mirror - about which I heard from my parents, though they did not "observe" it, everything else I - or rather, the sub-personality, learned from other children or books.

There is a predisposition in human brain for unsubstantiated beliefs, more in some than in others, and apparently genetically inheritable.

May I know your source for that information?

Unfortunately I didn't make notes of where I saw it and read it - in numerous places - and if I did, I can't find them on my HD. My life has been quite hectic recently...

But a quick google search should come up with quite a few - "genetic predisposition religious" yields a bunch of articles.

There are behavioral genetic studies, there are neurologists noting that damage or stimulation to a certain parts of the brain that cause "spiritual" experience or "out-of-body" experience.

There are pretty good explanations for the actual mechanism of mental malfunction people to "hear voices".

I use to be semi-religious, I didn't buy into it 100%. I went to a christian camp because I heard it was fun but while I was there I found myself making fun of the kids jumping to the music and putting their hands in the air.

Now that I am an athiest and see some sort of religious thing I get angry. I wonder to myself if they have ever thought about how ridiculious it is. Although, I sometimes find myself feeling an emotion close to sadness but also a mix of anger.

The other night I was flipping the channels and stopped on CNN. The DNC was on and I saw a speaker come out. The volume on my TV was very low so I couldn't hear much, I was listening to music. I saw everyone lower their heads and some rose their hands. I turned the volume up and sure enough they were saying a prayer. I got very angry and couldn't believe they were praying... Anyways, it just made me really angry.

AESTHETE:

I'm constintly going through different phases of what/how I think about God and Religion.
Sometimes I see it as ridiculous and foolish.
Sometimes I see it as a remote possibility.
Sometimes I think believers are justified.
Sometimes I think they're blind.

I'm going through the same thing.  In fact, both of my parents were raised Catholic and had experiences in their childhoods that irritated them and caused them to leave the church before they met each other.  However, they never taught us NOT to study religion, but to keep open minds and respect others' religions.  Now this is not to say we shouldn't question others' on their religion.  Even my parents like to have debates with Christians every now and then.  

With the exception of some funerals, we have never as a family attended a church.  However, my family and I have always been interested in the aspect of near-death experiences and reincarnation.  My dad especially has been reading books on this stuff a lot lately.  I'm not saying this stuff is true, and we certainly, as a family, never go around preaching it.  But it's for this reason that I beleive it to be a possiblilty that I have always concidered myself to be an Agnostic.

It wasn't until I began listenening to Steph's podcasts that I received any kind of explanation on Atheism.  However, I am still confused on the differences between Atheists and an Agnostics.

I also had a girl about a week ago ask me out of the blue if I believe in God.  I said that I don't beleive in God to be what most people believe God is, that is to say it is a Him.  I don't know if there is a god since there is no proof of it, but I believe it's possible.  Another girl in the car said that she was Mormon, but she only believes it because it makes her happy, but she never  talks about it with others unless asked.  What do you make of this statement?

that_z_dude:

Another girl in the car said that she was Mormon, but she only believes it because it makes her happy, but she never  talks about it with others unless asked.  What do you make of this statement?

When it comes to Mormons, that really makes a lot of sense.
Their life-style really is quite uplifting.
I would know.

Aesthete was your previous post ironic/satiric ? Or has the Angel Moroni spoken to you ?

No, dude, I'm totally cereal.