My friend is being ruined by his religion.

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#21

Quite an ignorant and naive statement imho. Like saying the law doesn’t force people to pay taxes.

I think people are for the most part products of their own environment. Especially so in collectivistic cultures. I do agree that there’s a connection between religion and culture to some extent and that some cultures have even been shaped by religion alone. In my book, there’s always a book, religion is an ancient answer to the increasingly unimportant question “why are we here and where did we come from?”.

I take it from the OP that he’s of age to leave home in which case I’d suggest he do that and find his own answers and come up with his own ideas in and of the world.

#22

Which will likely result in the guy being outcast by his family if I understand correctly; that’s a large sacrifice to make. Sometimes it just isn’t as simple as you want it to be :frowning:

#23

People arguing the finer points of religion… This isn’t really about religion itself.

It’s about a person whose life choices could result in exclusion from it’s community.

You see the same situation with people who realize they lean towards life choices not accepted by their peers: Religion, Sexual Orientation, Political Affiliation, Sports Team, Dating Choices…

The actual reasons for the situation aren’t really relevant, so let’s not turn this into a pro/anti religion flamewar, please. Not what this person needs to read anyway.

I second the advice that, in the end, it’s all about deciding what this person truly values in life, and going for it. Any choice will be hard, but that’s life, there always come points where you have to make an exclusive choice, and it rarely is an easy one.

#24

I agree with Oskuro, this problem is rather about freedom. In my humble opinion, parents and communities shouldn’t choose your job for you. Where is the limit? Who should decide for what? Maybe he should wonder why the community would have to tell him what he has to do in his daily life. I think the society shouldn’t take care of my personal choices, it should rather concentrate on what it should really handle.

#25

The question is: does your friend agree with his current religion’s interpretation of the Bible? Because the thing with most religions is that all of the opinions are filtered through priests, bishops (or equivalent), etc. Nobody knows what the people who wrote the original literature meant when they wrote it, so no interpretation is necessarily right or wrong. your friend needs to decide whether the relevant passages really mean what his religion says they mean.

#26

Again people, although meditating on the issue of freedom and belief is by no means pointless, the bottom line is that this person must now choose between risking losing its family (and possibly friends) or abandoning its career.

The question bears repeating, so I will: Is a professional career worth losing your family over?

Of course this is a very personal question, depends on your relationship with your family* and how much you value your personal independence.

It’s easy to philosophize and be idealistic when it’s purely a debate. It’s not so easy when everything you love is on the balance.

I personally haven’t been in this position myself, and I hope I’m never forced into it.

*Note: I didn’t say religion, I said family. This is a situation where one cannot be separated from the other, don’t forget that.

#27

Hi, i wanted to talk about a subject like this before but i couldn’t find the time so thank you “relminator” for bringing this up.

I can say that am having the same problem of your friend, Am living in a Muslim society, where religion is a sacred duty for some people, weapon for others and just a simple title to have for the rest, but what is sure, religion is a must-to-do here, there is a lot of people that don’t pray or do anything religious acts, in fact, they do forbidden things and they still claim that they are “Muslims”
but when someone just come and say, “am nothing, i just want to live by my own”, they will rip him apart, of course not violently, but you’re gonna be “the ugly duckling” in the group, me myself for example, my mom get me treated by a therapist because of this ::slight_smile: , it all started few years ago, we weer just arguing and she always mention god in her speech and i always made “fun” of him,

and in that time i was kinda having an extra-metalHead look, so that much perfectly with my mother thoughts and she took me to that doctor (EPIC FUN xD )
but honestly guys i still can’t tell that i 100% don’t believe in god :stuck_out_tongue: (the universe is too complicated to be a coincidence )
but religious… it’s full of shitty crap man… violence,murders,wars,abuses and stupid ceremonies, VERY STUPID !!
back to the subject,
i believe that the easiest way to get rid of these chains is to play along with them, i don’t know how he is gonna do it, but am afraid that being a rebellion will not help too much, it’s too easy to convert an atheist to be a religious person, but the opposite, it’s very very hard .

good luck for him

#28

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Some if my muslim pals eat pork secretly.

#29

This is just a prejudice. An atheist can have strong convictions and personally, you have absolutely no chance of converting me. There are more than 29% of atheists and about 63% of “non believers” in France (agnostics + atheists + anti-theists including people baptised when they were too young to complain but who don’t believe in any god).

#30

You definitely have it right. Most people who turn religious are people who weren’t atheists, they were people who didn’t care either way and got scared when some religious dude threatened them with an eternity in That Red Hot Place™.

#31

I can sympathize with the people who say that religion forces them to adopt certain behaviors. Even though I haven’t lived it, I have heard way too many stories about where people were completely forbidden to go to different places, or perform different body alterations, because it is temptation from the inherently evil side.

The biggest problem I realized is that most religious teachings are actually very humane, but people bend and twist it to meet their own ends. When that happens, then big barriers start being placed on what you can and can’t do in regards to religion. These are the conflicts, and eventually people will retaliate against this. As long as we question our decisions in regards to the teachings, we can free ourselves from the past problems and shackles.

I think religion is going to have to be redesigned in the near future, for everyone. The reasoning behind this is that I believe everyone acknowledges religion exists, even if they do not believe in the entities that are portrayed in religion. Also, thanks to the internet, there is beginning to be a better tolerance for the different aspects of religion, and its effects on the world.

Even though there is not much that can be done now, except to observe. The same laws that restrict don’t need to be followed in the future. I believe that this trend will continue because the world is slowly (and I mean very slowly) becoming more and more tolerant due to the vast amount of information available to people. (As long as they know where to look :slight_smile: )

I think the best advice would be…

“Don’t give up on what you believe is right. Attempt to see where your oppressors are coming from so you can have the knowledge to correct what is wrong.”

#32

As much as I’d like to believe this, I’ve seen no signs of this yet.

Interestingly, if two people discuss differences of view, in the end they tend to both walk away feeling reinforced in their views.

If anything, we see a world wide en mass conversion to hedonism, losely meaning that pleasure is the overarching goal in life. It might seem an innocent and harmless movement, but it numbs the minds.

#33

Moving to hedonism (of course, I had to google that) is something I could definitely forsee. With the new generation (at least in America) being significantly less disciplined and more lazy they will just come up with excuses to fit their religion.
“God wants me to eat this cheeseburger”

#34

That is an interesting way of putting it. Even after this specific post, I can disagree but I can be tolerant of your belief. Being tolerant is actually something I’ve seen happen on a mass scale, and in my view, it is causing a whole flurry of side effects. Some of these are good and some are bad. I will go over some of the more prevalent ones here.

  1. Laziness: Definitely one of the bad side effects of tolerance. People, in general, are having less and less conviction toward completing tasks and goals. Why? I don’t think that answer can be definitive. A huge part of me says that people of today are a lot less prone to taking risks due to the fact the reward is not immediate. There is a huge boon on everyone to push them into the mold of society… which in a lot of cases doesn’t get people very rich.

  2. Diversity: This is one of the good effects. The more people become tolerant, the more freedom people will have with doing what they believe. Freedom induces this push toward happiness. Which, coincidently, has a strong correlation to Hedonism. (Pain and pleasure has a very wide net… sadly, especially if you bring in spiritual, mental, and physical).

I think the point I was trying to make was that us, as a human race, are slowly becoming more aware. This is what is going to cause that shift into being more tolerant. Knowledge is the blade… it’ll pierce through ignorance and disbelief easily. Regardless of what we do, the knowledge is out there and it will change our society to be more aware whether we like it or not.

People can disagree, but the chances of someone using force is diminishing… slowly.

#35

@ctomni231

Wow, what? I assume your intentions are humble and sincere but I have to say you sound like a preacher preaching nonsense. Using a lot of words to say very little with few facts. :V

I don’t mean to offend when I say this but don’t buy into your own bullshit too easily. I sometimes do, everybody does. :>

#36

Uh… isn’t it a little early to demote this thread into another flame war about religion vs. whatever.

I am not expecting anyone to buy into anything. I am just stating an opinion, which is just harmless by definition. If you think my intentions is conversion, then you are grossly mistaken. I am being quite honest with myself when I say that we do not have a firm grasp on faith. Very hard to argue fact on something that doesn’t have anything tangible.

Extra Credits - Faith?

Religion arguments never go anywhere because of this. We’ll always “both” be right regardless. (Of course, if you are giving money… allow me to direct you to my Paypal account :smiley: )

#37

I doubt it’s that the world is becoming more tolerant, it’s more like the number of “I-don’t-give-a-damn-about-religion-let-me-refresh-my-facebook” people are increasing, who don’t care about anything in general.

#38

Its not about tolerance anymore, its about indifference. Although I hate Facebook its not fair to name it specifically in this case; its how people behave through the internet in general. You see the same things happening in forums, on twitter, etc. Its not all that hard to understand either to be honest; proper social interaction relies on more than verbal or textual communication, it heavily relies on being able to see hand gestures, facial expressions and posture and hear a tone of voice. All that you lack on the net, so its no surprise that people royally screw up interacting that way.

Long story short: An emoticon does not replace a face, a like is no substitute for a compliment.

#39

There ins’t much difference, from a practical standpoint.

Being tolerant means not taking unfair negative actions towards ideas you don’t agree with.

Whether that lack of negative reaction is due to apathy or self-restraint, the result still is a net increase in tolerance.

The increased flow of information in the current age does have many drawbacks, but one clear advantage is that it provides exposure to ideas that most people would never come in contact with on their own.

Expose someone to something long enough, and that something becomes mundane, and thus begets indifference, which is the goal of those who propose tolerance: Live and let live.

#40

That is a most excellent definition if I may say so.

And a retort to the entire post would require a further dive into semantics and I am really not in the mood to do so, plus it is already way off-topic :wink: I tolerate your reply, sir.