What religion are you?

Atheist, there's no God, Heaven, Hell or such a thing as the soul or an afterlife.

I do however respect that other people have very different views on this and wouldn't ever attempt to sway their opinion as I'm not an arsehole.

what did the dyslexic atheist say to daniel sturridge?

where's your dog now?

Jenuall wrote:I do believe that the vast majority of people who follow Christianity just want to be good people, and that is probably true for most of the major faiths as well.

No one needs to follow a religion to be good.

In fact personally across the world most of them (let's pick on Christians) do bad, but then get to pretend to be good despite objective evidence otherwise ("This magical omnipotent and omninciant being says I'm good so nurgghhh "). But that's a different question.

Blue Eyes wrote:what did the dyslexic atheist say to daniel sturridge?

where's your dog now?

Cruel

I think stealing dogs is wrong, but if he is offering a £30k no questions asked reward then I am bloody tempted to go and steal some of his pets.

Blue Eyes wrote:what did the dyslexic atheist say to daniel sturridge?

where's your dog now?

Did you hear about the dyslexic devil worshiper?

He sold his soul Santa

Blue Eyes joke reminded me of this classic:

Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac?

He lay awake all night wondering if there really was a dog

Karl_ wrote:Were you raised in quite a conservative way? It's just interesting that you seem maybe not very familiar with leftists, atheists, etc., given most under-35s fall into those demographics.

Believe me I was as liberal as they come even just a few years ago. My family nah they're conservative but the church denomination I joined is a different one than theirs. I've just completely immersed myself in the culture of that church that I've lost touch with most liberal people and since joining the church, since showing an interest in religion again, my relationship with my family is way better than it's ever been. So yes I come from a conservative background but I've had my fair share of liberal experiences in my past. Nowadays you guys are the only people I have conversations with that's so openly liberal.

My twin brother is liberal as well but he's run off to Mexico to be with his husband instead of around the family. I'm gay but asexual (limited dating pool) and the few times I have attempted to date someone in the past few years it's just resulted in a lot of tension between me and my family, and between me and my social circle.

I have a younger sister who's eighteen. She's moved away from home too, to another part of the country. She's currently living with her boyfriend who she's been dating since October, but we don't talk very much. I haven't seen her since September.

Openly liberal? That makes it sound like GRcade is our safe space, a place to hide away from real life where anti-fascist views are taboo. Pretty much all people I interact with (admittedly the vast majority of which are metropolitan, diverse and generally middle-class) would consider it taboo for someone to hold non-liberal views.

Are you from somewhere outside the UK? I don't want to incorrectly infer from the comment about your brother running away to Mexico, but I'm guessing the USA?

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Openly liberal? That makes it sound like GRcade is our safe space, a place to hide away from real life where anti-fascist views are taboo. Pretty much all people I interact with (admittedly the vast majority of which are metropolitan, diverse and generally middle-class) would consider it taboo for someone to hold non-liberal views.

Are you from somewhere outside the UK? I don't want to incorrectly infer from the comment about your brother running away to Mexico, but I'm guessing the USA?

Websites should never be our "safe space", I just don't keep liberal friends (out of pure happenstance, the places I attend in my spare time are all with friends from church)

I'm from around the UK, my brother was in Germany for a college course when he met his husband who was doing the same.

Hexx wrote:

Jenuall wrote:I do believe that the vast majority of people who follow Christianity just want to be good people, and that is probably true for most of the major faiths as well.

No one needs to follow a religion to be good.

Okay... I never said anyone had to follow a religion to be good?

Religious people can be good and bad, and non-religious people can be good and bad... Nothing I said contradicts that.

Hexx wrote:In fact personally across the world most of them (let's pick on Christians) do bad, but then get to pretend to be good despite objective evidence otherwise ("This magical omnipotent and omninciant being says I'm good so nurgghhh "). But that's a different question.

Everyone "does bad" depending on how you classify bad. Running a red light is bad, eating a baby is bad etc. Christianity isn't about pretending you're not bad, in any way whatsoever, not sure what gave you that impression.

Moggy wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Ultimately it’s something that I believe encourages me to live a better life than I might otherwise have done - in terms of being more generous with what I have to offer etc. I don’t obviously know if this is actually the case as I can’t compare how I would have lived the last 15 years of my life if I had carried on as an atheist, but I know there are helpful things I have done in that time which I can’t have seen me doing otherwise.

I know you don’t mean it this way, but that sounds a little like the “You’re an atheist? So why don’t you murder people?” line I have heard people say before.

Everyone has to live their lives the way they want to. As long as you’re not forced into it and it doesn’t hurt anybody else, then it’s all down to individual choice.

Never heard that line before and yes that's definitely not what I was getting at. All I'm saying is that until I was 20 I wasn't a Christian and there's no way of knowing if spending the last 15 years as one has actually made me a better person or not, I might well have gone on to be even more awesome if I'd stayed an atheist!

Agreed on the live your life the way you want point, like I say I don't see it as my purpose to go out and badger people into changing their way of life (again maybe this makes me a bad Christian in some people's eyes!) I think all of us have some responsibility to live a "good life" and the motivation that drives that and framework which is used to determine what is "good" will differ from person to person. If that's a religion great, if it's something else then excellent. I still wanted to be a good person before becoming a Christian!

LightWanderer wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Openly liberal? That makes it sound like GRcade is our safe space, a place to hide away from real life where anti-fascist views are taboo. Pretty much all people I interact with (admittedly the vast majority of which are metropolitan, diverse and generally middle-class) would consider it taboo for someone to hold non-liberal views.

Are you from somewhere outside the UK? I don't want to incorrectly infer from the comment about your brother running away to Mexico, but I'm guessing the USA?

Websites should never be our "safe space", I just don't keep liberal friends (out of pure happenstance, the places I attend in my spare time are all with friends from church)

I'm from around the UK, my brother was in Germany for a college course when he met his husband who was doing the same.

Do you find yourself unable/unwilling to contribute 'liberal' opinion in conversation with your current crop of friends/associates or is it that you generally don't agree with viewpoints that align with social and/or economic liberalist ideology?

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Do you find yourself unable/unwilling to contribute 'liberal' opinion in conversation with your current crop of friends/associates or is it that you generally don't agree with viewpoints that align with social and/or economic liberalist ideology?

I know what my friends' beliefs are and respect them enough not to bring up ideologies that oppose that during a game of 10-pin bowling.

LightWanderer wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Do you find yourself unable/unwilling to contribute 'liberal' opinion in conversation with your current crop of friends/associates or is it that you generally don't agree with viewpoints that align with social and/or economic liberalist ideology?

I know what my friends' beliefs are and respect them enough not to bring up ideologies that oppose that during a game of 10-pin bowling.

There are certainly good and not so good opportunities for these sorts of discussions, no doubt about it. Surely strong friendships are built to withstand respectful debate of opposing views? It is not in itself disrespectful to challenge/discuss/debate any viewpoint, particularly if hosted within a solid friendship.

The main problem with debating both fascist and religious viewpoints is very similar. It is difficult for anyone with those views to argue their point for long without quickly either sounding very cruel (in the case of fascists) or without tapping into their own hidden insecurities (religious people). Fascist and religious viewpoints simply don't stand up to scrutiny and can quickly boil over into emotional argument.

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:stuff

Arguments with my friends would be futile. It would boil down to either them saying I'm wrong, or me saying the church is wrong and thus not properly sustaining my church leaders. Don't misunderstand me, I have had debates from time to time but it's not comfortable as calling the church's views on something wrong is pretty taboo. That's the kind of stuff that gets us sent into the office and told to repent.

LightWanderer wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:stuff

Arguments with my friends would be futile. It would boil down to either them saying I'm wrong, or me saying the church is wrong and thus not properly sustaining my church leaders. Don't misunderstand me, I have had debates from time to time but it's not comfortable as calling the church's views on something wrong is pretty taboo. That's the kind of stuff that gets us sent into the office and told to repent.

I hear what you're saying. I suppose I just found it odd initially that you considered it out of the ordinary for conversations on GRcade to be openly liberal in nature. I think I'd be pretty uncomfortable if I wasn't confident about expressing my honest views and opinions with my friends/family/colleagues.

Atheist. Not sure how to say how active I am in it, because by default it involves not doing anything.

We've not had one of these threads for years (that I remember, anyway).

They used to get pretty lively .

Personally I would consider myself an atheist, because I think being 99% agnostic qualifies as atheistic. If I was perhaps 85% agnostic, I'd define myself as such.

It has baffled me throughout my entire life why religion is still as prominent in this day and age.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:Atheist. Not sure how to say how active I am in it, because by default it involves not doing anything.

You’ve not been invited to the meetings?

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:It has baffled me throughout my entire life why religion is still as prominent in this day and age.

Hope is a very powerful drug. Many people want to feel a sense of purpose, as if there's a grand plan for them, and religion is one of the easiest way to feel that. Then of course it answers big questions like where did we come from etc

LightWanderer wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:It has baffled me throughout my entire life why religion is still as prominent in this day and age.

Hope is a very powerful drug. Many people want to feel a sense of purpose, as if there's a grand plan for them, and religion is one of the easiest way to feel that. Then of course it answers big questions like where did we come from etc

This, many many people aren’t cool with idea that when you die you end, religion helps that.