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Would anyone here besides me like to see a more welcoming environment in more interfaith activities, for people who see some or all religions as harmful to all people and to society? If so, do you have any ideas of how that might happen, and what you or I can do to help?
Don't you despise all Abrahamic religions, and see nothing but harm in them? Would you not want to participate in any interfaith activities with any of their followers, or associate with any of them?I don't see it as unwelcoming, but more just the fundies don't want to go. If you believe all other belief systems are wrong, and you have the only right one, why in the world would you want to go to an interfaith meeting and associate with those types?
People must be able to belive what they do, and non belivers must be able to belive what they want.Would anyone here besides me like to see a more welcoming environment in more interfaith activities, for people who see some or all religions as harmful to all people and to society? If so, do you have any ideas of how that might happen, and what you or I can do to help?
Don't you despise all Abrahamic religions, and see nothing but harm in them? Would you not want to participate in any interfaith activities with any of their followers, or associate with any of them?
@Vinayaka How welcome would you feel in a social circle where it's popular to malign people who disapprove of Christianity or Islam? That's part of what I see as a fatal flaw in popular interfaith initiatives. It's popular in those circles to malign religious conservatives.
People must be able to belive what they do, and non belivers must be able to belive what they want.
I suppose you could start by visiting an interfaith site like this one and try to alter its friendly purpose of getting people of different religions to talk to each other. The forum would completely lose its purpose and become simply another skeptical forum of which there are many. What you are talking about seems not interfaith but anti faith. The hard thing is not getting people to object to religions but getting people in different religions to learn of and respect one another, which is something that cannot be accomplished in an environment like the one you suggest.Would anyone here besides me like to see a more welcoming environment in more interfaith activities, for people who see some or all religions as harmful to all people and to society? If so, do you have any ideas of how that might happen, and what you or I can do to help?
I frequently bring this up with members of the forum here to point out the purpose is specialized. We do not aim to pack the forum with complaints against religions. No, that is not at all our niche according to the rules. The idea here is to help religious people talk to and especially to understand and listen to each other: Catholics, Jews, LDS, JW's, 7th Day Adventists, Bahai's, Muslims. There are hundreds or thousands of sites for complaints against religions and ex-cult support. I myself am a member of an ex-cult support group. I grasp anger and betrayal some people feel towards religions, but there are other places to express that. There are places for those warriors who wish to do battle with religion but not here. We do allow ex-religious people and non-religious people, but this forum is for making friends and exchanging ideas not for correcting or changing religions. It will always cater first to religious people, especially those who have a lot of religious knowledge and who are polite. If those people ever stopped coming here then the forum will be lost, completely indistinguishable from hundreds of others, redundant. It would lose its value rapidly. Similarly we do need some non-believers, especially knowledgeable and educated ones; but we don't need to become I think a very anti-religious support group.The mission of Religious Forums is to provide a civil, informative, respectful, and welcoming environment where people of diverse beliefs can discuss, compare, and debate. Content members create while debating and discussing must be done in the spirit of productivity. Bashing other forums, creating unproductive content or responses to others, attempting to use this site as a platform for campaigning for or against or furthering a personal agenda, and attempting to undermine the forum mission may result in moderation.
There is unavoidably a bit of tension between the open admission that there are harmful religions (or pseudo-religions) and the goal of having a welcoming, interfaith environment. A decision must be made, communicated and (hopefully) agreed on about what to encourage and what to refuse. And in order not to lose one's way, that decision must be revisited and reconsidered at least somewhat often.Would anyone here besides me like to see a more welcoming environment in more interfaith activities, for people who see some or all religions as harmful to all people and to society? If so, do you have any ideas of how that might happen, and what you or I can do to help?
Would anyone here besides me like to see a more welcoming environment in more interfaith activities, for people who see some or all religions as harmful to all people and to society? If so, do you have any ideas of how that might happen, and what you or I can do to help?
Exactly. That's what I'm thinking now, too. Close friendships at the local level between people in interfaith circles and atheists, and between people in interfaith circles and people on the far right. It might actually be happening a lot more than I thought, but I would like to see it getting more attention.I dont really see it getting off the ground at more than a local level where acquaintance and friendship can play a part.
I have very difficult time with the far right sometimes too, but no more than I have with the far left sometimes. For the same reasons. Besides, it isn't about close friendships with all the people across those lines from us. It only needs to be a few of them.I myself have a very difficult time with the far right, Jim.
Every time I learn not to do that with one group or category of people, I start doing it with another.It is certainly important to resist the temptation of dehumanizing people. No small challenge.