For people who are working to help reduce animosities and hostilities across belief divides

We might not have as far to go as I thought. It might be like "The Emperor's New Clothes." Most people might already know in the back of their minds how fraudulent, disgraceful, contemptible and harmful it is to divide people up into categories defined by ideology, to excuse and camouflage hostile attitudes and behavior towards some other people and using them as scapegoats, effigies and voodoo dolls. It might only take a few people saying out loud what everyone really already knows, to get the ball rolling to discredit those practices as widely and thoroughly as they need to be, to avert or at least mitigate the unprecedented worldwide disasters that I see looming ahead of us if that doesn't happen very soon.

I see that sorting people into categories defined by ideologies might be partly a consequence of substituting endorsement of an ideology as a qualification for being counted as a follower of a religion or identifying with it, in the place of learning from the stories of each religion and within their communities how to live the best life. There are lines of separation between the religions, in the stories they tell, but those are lines in time and in space, between dispensations and between geographic regions. Understood in that way, they can be seen together as one continuous story in time and space, with all of us as being in that story together. Redefining the religions as the systems of beliefs and practices that are associated with them, obscures that.

2ndpillar said:

Communist are antitheist. They are secular, and determine right from wrong (morality) on their own. Your secular humanist are their own gods, and their lives seem to generally portray just that. They seem to howl at the moon and sky, and at the moment, vehemently hate one person.

sec·u·lar hu·man·ism
[secular humanism]
NOUN

1. humanism, with regard in particular to the belief that humanity is capable of morality and self-fulfillment without belief in God.

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By "God" do you mean whichever one you've chosen
to believe in?

Audie said:

By "God" do you mean whichever one you've chosen
to believe in?

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By "god" refers to the secular humanist choosing themselves as their own god.

No matter if it’s roleplaying or not, or how entertaining it might be to some people, I will continue denouncing the practice of dividing people into groups and categories defined by ideology. That includes “Abrahamic” and “non-Abrahamic.” I’m not sure yet how often to do that, but for now I’ll try doing it every time I see it happening. I might also start denouncing the practice of appropriating the name and some parts of a religion for purposes contrary to its own, especially when it’s being used to excuse and camouflage prejudices and animosities across delusional belief divides.

2ndpillar said:

By "god" refers to the secular humanist choosing themselves as their own god.

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Nonsense. Read your own post, last line.
You dont seem to even know what you cut and
pasted.

On to this post-
The invidious falsehood you've made up about
people you know nothing about will stand as a fine
example of what this thread is against-prejudice
and animosity scross delusion belief divides.

Jim has some terrif advice for you.

Audie said:

Nonsense. Read your own post, last line.
You dont seem to even know what you cut and
pasted.

On to this post-
The invidious falsehood you've made up about
people you know nothing about will stand as a fine
example of what this thread is against-prejudice
and animosity scross delusion belief divides.

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I've run across this before.
A fundie friend has been trained (by his church) to believe that
everyone believes in God. But some people (us heathens)
substitute themselves for God, & worship themselves as a god.
This eases the way to look down upon us as deluded narcissists.

They should fear my righteous wrath!

Jim said:

I’m thinking that your work might have far more value than you realize, yourself. I’ll say more about that after I do some more research. For now I want to post about my ideas and experiences, and I’m hoping that others will post about theirs.

I’ve been thinking that one of the most consequential things that we could be doing is growing close friendships with people across the widest belief divides. Now I’m not so sure of that, but I don’t have any ideas about what anyone could be doing in their everyday lives, better than that, to help reduce animosities and hostilities across the divides.

I’ve been feeling like I haven’t been doing as much about it as I thought I was. I’ve spent possibly hundreds of hours in friendly discussions with people across the widest divides, but those haven’t led to the kind of friendships that I think is needed. I have friendships like that with people where I live, who all say that they don’t believe in God, and who know that my life and my ways of thinking are God-centered, but I can’t picture how that can ever make any difference in the violence in other parts of the world that I’ve been telling myself that I’m helping to stop. Intuitively I feel that it’s meaningful, but I’m having a hard time explaining it to myself.

If there are better ways to help stop the animosities and hostilities across belief divides, than growing friendships across those divides, what are they? I know about various kinds of interfaith initiatives. I also see a lot of power in storytelling. What else?

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Jim, I like your style.

Revoltingest said:

I've run across this before.
A fundie friend has been trained (by his church) to believe that
everyone believes in God. But some people (us heathens)
substitute themselves for God, & worship themselves as a god.
This eases the way to look down upon us as deluded narcissists.

They should fear my righteous wrath!

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Blighters like you are in rebellion because you
like to sin.

Again I denounce the practice of dividing people into groups and categories defined by beliefs, this time including "fundamentalists," and "secular humanists," and especially, deriding people across those divides.

I think I'll stop denouncing division of people into groups and categories for now, because if I do that every time I see it, I might not have time for anything else.

Landon Caeli said:

Jim, I like your style.

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Thanks. I'm glad you reminded me about my original post. I want to review and update my thoughts about this.

I think that things will stop getting worse for most people like they are now, and start getting better, when the movement towards warmer feelings and more friendly intentions towards all people everywhere, and towards all of nature, grows and spreads enough to overpower the growing and spreading popularity of cruelty, brutality, dishonesty, treachery and ugliness. I thought that might take five or maybe even ten more generations, but now I see a possibility that it could happen in only two or three.

Meanwhile I see unprecedented worldwide disasters ahead, if prejudices and animosities across belief divides are not decisively checked. Some examples of what I see that anyone can do who wants to, are to build close friendships across the widest belief divides, learn to be a better friend to more people, stop making excuses for indulging our worst impulses, stop thinking of people as being divided into belief categories, practice and promote community service, and help circulate heartwarming stories by and for people across the widest belief divides. No matter what any of us do now, it might be too little too late, but I don't see that as a reason not to try.

I had an idea that we might need to openly denounce the practice of dividing people into belief categories, and I still think that might be true, but it might conflict with the need I see to distance ourselves as far as possible from all campaigns of denunciation and intimidation. I'm going to back away from that for now. Maybe we just need to keep remembering in our own minds how fraudulent, detestable and dangerous that practice is, and let people see occasionally how we feel about it. Also how fraudulent, detestable and dangerous it is to use free thinking, free speech, the need for truthfulness and other excuses for indulging our worst impulses in Internet discussions, jarring and battering people with our words; and to use "criticism" of a religion as an excuse and as camouflage for campaigns of defamation against categories of people defined by beliefs.

Now I'm seeing the practice of dividing people into groups and categories defined by ideology as part of the smoke and dust obscuring the role of religion in human progress. The role of religion in human progress is in the prophets, scriptures, stories and community life of religious communities. Reducing them to the systems of beliefs and practices that have accumulated around them, drags red herrings across discussions about religion, and is part of the masquerades of "criticism" of religion, and people dressing up their personal philosophies with the name and some surface features of one religion or another.

Audie said:

Blighters like you are in rebellion because you
like to sin.

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Been known to happen.

There are people out there with the sole cause of eradicating certain beliefs and convictions.

Quite honestly in all walks of life and on every side of the divide you will find predators. They will champion their intellect, and bash you with their standards.

So i find that quite a lot of people are warring to be the predominant mindset that rules society. Its a war for minds and nevermind the heart of the matter with these types.

Hate mongerers crop up, and with them there is no bridges to build. It can be crude or sophisticated. But they are out their to demean.

All that YouTube popularity can be a real cess pool. Not all of it, but a lot of it.

Spiritual ignorance could downfall society. Genuine spirituality that is not based on materialist or non materialist views is sorely lacking.

A lot of people just dont care, they wear hate rather cozily. The future of religion is to break from fantasy and deal with heart matters first and foremost. Science does not have a clue as to the simplicity and importance of spirituality. Its a lost language and art.

Perhaps i am missing the good sides in all of this and i got lost in the internet jungle for awhile. But internet forums are big walls to hide behind, and fire off cheap ad hominems.

osgart said:

Perhaps i am missing the good sides in all of this ...

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Perhaps you are. I"ve been doing a lot of protesting recently, but most of my experience in these forums has been wonderful for me.

osgart said:

Quite honestly in all walks of life and on every side of the divide you will find predators.

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Yes.

Hate mongerers crop up, and with them there is no bridges to build.

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I think that there are people like that, and there have been a few people in these forums that looked like that to me, but I found out I was wrong about one of them. I might be wrong about the others too.

Revoltingest said:

I've run across this before.
A fundie friend has been trained (by his church) to believe that
everyone believes in God. But some people (us heathens)
substitute themselves for God, & worship themselves as a god.
This eases the way to look down upon us as deluded narcissists.

They should fear my righteous wrath!

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I feel like it would be dishonest for me to pass over this without telling you my thoughts about it. In terms of my ways of thinking, I do think that what everyone is searching for is in a personal relationship with God, and that people sometimes do substitute self worship in the place of worshiping Him. Only, for me that has nothing to do with anyone's ideology, or the label they put on it. I've seen examples of what I mean by self worship in people preaching from the Bible that they never read. More specifically, you don't look at all like a deluded narcissist to me. What you look like to me most of all is my favorite example of someone doing the kind of forum community service that I would like to practice and promote..

I want to review and update my thoughts about this again. I see unprecedented worldwide disasters ahead if the practice of dividing people up into groups and categories defined by beliefs is not widely and thoroughly discredited very soon. No matter what any of us do, it might be too little too late, but we can try. Some ideas about what anyone can do who wants to are:
- Learn to be a better friend to more people.
- Practice friendship and fellowship across the widest belief divides, including liberal/conservative divides within each religion.
- Practice and promote community service online and offline.
- Learn more about the stories and communities of all the religions.
- Read heartwarming stories by and for followers of each religion.
- Stop making up excuses for indulging our worst impulses, and maybe openly denounce that practice sometimes, without pointing a finger in any particular direction.
- Stop thinking of people as being divided into groups and categories defined by beliefs, and maybe openly denounce that practice sometimes, without pointing a finger in any particular direction. For example, stop thinking of people as “theists,” “atheists,” “Abrahamics,” “non-Abrahamics,” “fundies,” “lefties,” even in roleplaying games. Think of the religious labels that people wear only in terms of their association or identification with religious or non-religious communities or societies, and not as if it tells us anything about their beliefs.

If anyone has any other ideas about what anyone can do who wants to, I hope they will post them.

Revoltingest said:

A fundie friend has been trained (by his church) to believe that
everyone believes in God. But some people (us heathens)
substitute themselves for God, & worship themselves as a god.
This eases the way to look down upon us as deluded narcissists.

They should fear my righteous wrath!

Click to expand...

Feel free to unleash your "righteous wrath". It will only come down upon your own head. You have apparently eaten from the tree of good and evil, and determine what is righteous and evil in your own mind. The result is that you will surely die (Genesis 3:4).

Genesis 3:4 4"You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman.