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Do your religious inclinations isolate you?

anders

Well-Known Member
AlanGurvey said:
Alot of the time it does make it hard to have a discussion on theology, many times they view my Jewish Interpretation as flawed on the old testament, usually belittleing my points as "No, Alan you can't talk you don't know what we are talking about."
Just tell them that your people wrote it, so they should know. I have looked only superficially at Bible Hebrew, but it would be useful to have more and also the Hebrew of the commentaries. They often appear much more credible to me than the usual Christian comments.

If your religious inclinations, or lack of them, often confuse others or isolate you from them in some way, what form does this take? Is it ever a source of tension?

Those who would bring up my views would probably be genuinely interested. Others couldn't care less. When I was a Christian, nobody commented, despite my going to church at least once a week. They kept questions regarding my sanity to themselves. Now that I'm an atheist, positive mainly towards ancient Daoism, I think if somebody would mention my beliefs, it would be out of pure interest and might start an interesting conversation. But I won't hold my breath. Summary: no problems.

Do you ever find that there is a gulf between yourself and people who have known you for a long time but went in a very different direction to you concerning religion?
The one and only person I know who has taken a new road is my younger sister. She left the Church of Sweden several years before me. I don't know if it was because of a profound inner struggle, or if she just thought she saw no benefit in paying the equivalent of a few hundred dollars per year in church tax. I know nobody else who has made a change. In fact, I know the faith of very few people: two friends from high schools, married, both Lutherans; that guy's brother, ordained in the Church of Sweden, and the neighbour couple, Catholics! (and ethnic Swedes!! strange.) and a teacher and one long-term pupil at the university dept. of Semitic languages, who are Jews. That's all. You will have noticed that I didn't mention any relatives. I don't know what they believe. So, no problems in this regard either.
 

Scarlett Wampus

psychonaut
Interesting posts! :)

Revasser said:
I would say there is probably nothing unusual about this, SW, especially if these are friends you've not had much contact with for a length of time. I've often found this to be the case with people I've not really been in touch with for a while and it has very little to do with religion in most cases. People just go off in different directions, and if you aren't there "along for the ride" with them (and they with you), the changes can seem huge and difficult to understand when you meet them again.
Revasser that's so true. Frustrated and tired as I was last night I was blowing this matter out of proportion. It isn't (necessarily) a religious thing, a grown apart thing more likely. Religion only came into it in when I met up with a few old friends a couple of days ago because they were curious about the 'calm' thing and I mentioned meditation. That went down like a lead balloon and sparked off a discussion where it began to dawn on me just how different my values were to theirs. Also I felt they misunderstood me but it was neigh on impossible to explain myself to them. A little while later a bad situation arose with my niece and one of the group which effectively ended the night out. The two events were unrelated but I drew a connection.

If you became close to someone many years ago to the extent you felt quite in sync with them then meet up after you've both gone in very different directions it can be odd. At first it might seem natural to assume a similar level of easiness with intimacy as you had before and that does hold in some cases, maybe most cases if you're lucky. When that's gone it can be quite a shock.

Anyway all that distracts from the other (and main) topic subject which was being socially isolated or ostracised because of your religion or lack of. There are always going to be conflicts arising from differences in belief but when they're spurious, i.e. based on prejudice and misunderstanding, thats no good at all. From reading the posts in this thread its clear pretty much all of you have had to deal with that to some extent or other. All the better that places like RF exist then, we need dialogue!

Mykola said:
If you haven't guessed by then, - I don't see Taoism as a sound teaching worth of being considered seriously. As I can see now, it doesn't seem to solve your problems, creating new ones instead.
Am I though a bit right?
Perhaps a Taoist attitude to this would be to say that solving some problems can and probably will create new ones. I would like to think that Taoist teaching offers something of worth though, even to those of quite different religious/non-religious persuasions. Of course openness is encouraged in Taoist philosophy so I would say that! Nevertheless, it boils down to having to consider the possibility of being plain wrong about some things. If you have serious doubts about Taoism then you could start a new thread to explore them with other forum members?
 

St0ne

Active Member
I mostly keep it to myself in day to day life, online I'm open about my religion and my take on others. Definately online you see the isolation, whenever I have a post on my blog about why I don't believe in god my rankings, clciks, etc go down quite noticably.
 

Mykola

Member
divine said:
this applies perfectly to my relation to taoism. it is in fact the only religious belief i feel holds up to any kind of serious philosophical critique. granted, peoples standards differ in this department. but please don't assume that taoism is about being 'spiritually comfortable'.

And what about epistemological critique, textual critique etc?

divine said:
i'm sure you have a lot of reasonable arguments to back this up with. no?

I'll give your some of then a bit later today.

divine said:
i think it's a really ugly thing of you to exploit somebody venting a problem

Stop, Divine.
It would be ugly, if I exploited... etc. But I wouldn't.

divine said:
and putting themselves in a potentially vulnerable or insecure position (whether this applies to wampus or not - it could most definitely) to push your baseless, ignorant little ideas.

I don't do anything like that. Be careful about your wording, please.

divine said:

Whole lot of emotions... Why don't you try to help SW? Scolding a narrow-minded ignorant baseless-ideas-pushing Mykola is a bigger fun, yeah? :)
 

Feathers in Hair

World's Tallest Hobbit
Scarlett Wampus said:
If your religious inclinations, or lack of them, often confuse others or isolate you from them in some way, what form does this take? Is it ever a source of tension?

For me, it's more saddness than anything else. I'd like to be in a local spirituality group, whether it's a church, a coven (or any other gathering of pagans), or something else- but the local churches tend to be a bit out of my comfort level, and, although I would love to join the UU church in Cedar Rapids (or do more than volunteering at the local Zen Center), my family and are are trying to conserve gas. I love the rural life, but sometimes it has its setbacks!
Do you ever find that there is a gulf between yourself and people who have known you for a long time but went in a very different direction to you concerning religion?

My dad is pretty much the only who seems to have difficulties with it. Since he sees himself in me so much, my experiences in spirituality are very different from his. (Before he remarried (to my wonderful stepmother, whom I love!), he would only go to church in order to meet singles.) When he talks about spirituality, it tends to be only in the context of 'what business contacts you can make at church'. I think my pull to spirituality for its own sake is kind of off-putting to him.

I wish I didn't care what he thought. :(
 

Cerrax

That One Guy
When it comes to general affairs, it doesn't really affect anything. Even personal matters between me my family and my fianceé's family it doesn't cause any problems. The only time I really felt isolated when when I was a Boy Scout. The Boy Scouts of America only truly see Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and to a certain extent Hinduism, as religion. So my faith wasn't really accepted (but never refuted either). So going to the church service was always a little weird and getting reviewed for rank advancement was always a chore because I had to explain my faith to them and make it sound like I was following God (even though I don't believe in him).
 

d.

_______
Mykola said:
I'll give your some of then a bit later today.
that'll be interesting.

preferrably in another thread, please.

Mykola said:
Stop, Divine.
It would be ugly, if I exploited... etc. But I wouldn't.
I don't do anything like that. Be careful about your wording, please.
Whole lot of emotions... Why don't you try to help SW? Scolding a narrow-minded ignorant baseless-ideas-pushing Mykola is a bigger fun, yeah? :)
just saying 'no, i didn't do that', does little, sorry.
 
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