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Post by ncwidt5895 on Jun 25, 2004 1:19:57 GMT -5
Honestly, why do people find the need to preach their religion so much? For pete's sake, they were handing out BIBLES outside my brother's school about 5 or so times last year. And the school couldn't do anything because they were enough feet away where it was public property.
My family doesn't get much better either - grandparents are highly religious, preachy and look down upon my family and my one uncle, aunt and two cousins because they're not as religious either. They favor another aunt 'n cousins and stuff because they ARE religious.
I mean, I'm fine with people being religious - I don't care if you attend services and such every week, or hold Shabbat (my family is Jewish, as I've said before) dinners every Friday. But there is enough problems in the world where we don't need people attempting to force beliefs on us.
What's your opinion on this matter?
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Post by Crystal on Jun 25, 2004 5:11:48 GMT -5
Normally, I'd tell my religion to whomever asks or if I see an opening (for instance when my friend is talking about her/his religion.) or in debates. I don't make a secret of the fact that I'm Christian, and I try to be good. But I don't try to force people into it. I've seen too many people who hate a religion because someone tried to force them into it than to try that now.
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Post by KittyKadaveral on Jun 25, 2004 6:08:03 GMT -5
Preach to those that wish to listen, not force the fact. I showed an interest in learning about my semi-ex-friend's mormon beliefs just for the sake of learning something new. He got the wrong idea and started dogging me everywhere trying to push things until I pushed him over a couch and told him to knock it off  There's also a girl I try to avoid through IMs on AOL who after every sentance says she's blessed or Praise Jesus. Ok, that's a bit too far. It's good to be happy about your religion (if you have one) but to constantly shove it down someone's throat is a bit desperate I feel. |
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Post by teghan62 on Jun 25, 2004 10:55:53 GMT -5
Religion should not be preached to those who don't want to hear about it.
I rmemeber this one time I was in a chat, and some Christian extremist that none of us knew came in. She somehow found out I was Jewish, and we got into a huge fight, her telling me I was going to go to hell, and me telling her to shut the hell up and other stuff like that, with a friend backing me up. Honestly, it was pretty funny, but it got a bit annoying after a while, me and my friends giving us good points (ie. If you're that religious, then you should learn to listen to your religion, like God told you to.) and all she could say was, "BUT YOU'RE STILL GOING TO GO TO HELL!!" And eventually we drove her out of the chat. She came back in later and tried to apologize, but there was no way I could've accepted it by then. o__O; Or Christian extremists, or ANY religious estremists by then unless I knew them beforehand or personally... thanks to that one person, because some extremists can be nice (like my uncle, 'least I knew him beforehand) but just one persn so blindly caught up in their beliefs has to ruin it for everyone.
Actually, the chat is saved by one of my friends who helped me in her LJ, but since LJ is being lady dogy, I can't get it right now. :P
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Post by Tracy on Jun 25, 2004 11:00:28 GMT -5
Religion should not be preached to those who don't want to hear about it. I rmemeber this one time I was in a chat, and some Christian extremist that none of us knew came in. She somehow found out I was Jewish, and we got into a huge fight, her telling me I was going to go to hell, and me telling her to shut the hell up and other stuff like that, with a friend backing me up. Honestly, it was pretty funny, but it got a bit annoying after a while, me and my friends giving us good points (ie. If you're that religious, then you should learn to listen to your religion, like God told you to.) and all she could say was, "BUT YOU'RE STILL GOING TO GO TO HELL!!" And eventually we drove her out of the chat. She came back in later and tried to apologize, but there was no way I could've accepted it by then. o__O; Or Christian extremists, or ANY religious estremists by then unless I knew them beforehand or personally... thanks to that one person, because some extremists can be nice (like my uncle, 'least I knew him beforehand) but just one persn so blindly caught up in their beliefs has to ruin it for everyone. Actually, the chat is saved by one of my friends who helped me in her LJ, but since LJ is being lady dogy, I can't get it right now.  My LJ, to be exact. And yes, that girl told me my dad was going to hell too. Lovely person. This is weird, I was going to start this topic today. I was thinking about it in RE... |
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Post by Kiddo on Jun 25, 2004 11:25:01 GMT -5
Think of it this way. If you know someone is hurting from a horrible disease or injury or something, and didn't know how to help themselves, wouldn't you want to do something? And if you did have something you could to do help, wouldn't you try everything in your power to get them to use it?
That's what it's like with being a Christian. I myself went through a really bad period where I rejected God and went my own way. I was miserable, lonely, and didn't really care if I lived or died anymore. So now, when I see the same look on other people's faces I want to help them get out of that the only way I know how - by calling out to Christ.
However, there are right and wrong ways of doing this. It's all situational - the important thing is to have tact. I'm sure everyone here has seen instances of tactless individuals... but not everyone is. A lot of people genuinly care about others and have given their lives to helping people.
Now, as for the handing Bibles out issue - it's free stuff. Com'n... that always puzzles me. On campus, if someone is handing out free stuff there's a swarm trying to get to it. When the Gideons (a group that hands out Bibles) came to campus, the students acted like they were being personally insulted. Campus lawyers even called the police to make them leave. The police only redirected them to areas where there were more students, as, "I am NOT telling someone the age of my grandfather to leave for passing out Bibles! They don't make us escort anyone else off campus anyways."
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Post by Oily on Jun 25, 2004 16:13:38 GMT -5
Think of it this way. If you know someone is hurting from a horrible disease or injury or something, and didn't know how to help themselves, wouldn't you want to do something? And if you did have something you could to do help, wouldn't you try everything in your power to get them to use it? That's what it's like with being a Christian. But some of us reject God and manage to live a perfectly happy and fulfilled life. My Christian friends have never preached to me, nor I to them. My friend's view has always been if you live in a moral way and apologise for anything bad you did, you go to heaven anyway. As I said "I would only ever give my belief to a god that didn't mind I wouldn't believe in it." Kind of a Catch 22 If I wanted to be Christian, I could walk into a church. Hand out a Bible if people come over, looking interested. Fair enough. Don't preach at them, or badger them. I had people who preach at me in the street, whether it's on animal rights, or vegan-ism, or religion. |
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Post by ghostision on Jun 25, 2004 17:08:30 GMT -5
I think it really depends on how you do it. For example, in Utah, there's the annual Mormon Conference, and there are invariably protesters outside that holding up protest signs and shouting "All Mormons are going to hell" in people's faces. Which makes me laugh, because I wonder if they seriously believe anyone's going to be converted by their shows of blatant intolerance. But it's really offensive, and I'm not even Mormon, though lots of my friends are.
And of course, a boy in my class, he's very religious and very opinionated, but so much, that even the people of his own religion tell him to shut up when he starts to talk. He has this "I'm right, and you're wrong" attitude that annoys everyone, and manages to provoke people into screaming arguments, and doesn't respect anyone else's opinion.
People like these tend to make me think: "Well guess who's religion I'm not joining." If all they're going to do is tell me everything else is wrong, I usually don't listen.
But on the other side of the spectrum: I come from practically all Mormon neighborhood, they've invited me to attend church a few times, or maybe some of their activities. They've never pressured me to join, never said what I've believed is wrong, and the missionaries that I've talked to are generally civil. And I tend to listen to them, think about what they've said.
And at the Olympics, a few years ago a group of people, I can't precisely remember what religion, but they were handing out pamphlets on their religion, and they were really nice people, and I did read the pamphlets and things, despite my friend telling me to burn it, since she believed the Chinese government propoganda.
There are examples of these attitudes in all religions, obviously, and, well, I prefer to to listen to the second sort of people, rather than those who yell "Convert, you infidel, or you're going to hell." I'm okay with people telling me about their religion, not why it's right, since I think I can judge that for myself. And I just said far more than I was planning to, on this subject, since I'm really not as opinionated on this subject as I seem, but meh...
Believe your religion, don't flaunt it, when you're trying to convert people.
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Post by seraphengel on Jun 25, 2004 20:55:28 GMT -5
See, I think if you disagree with something, let's say about the homosexuality or something like that. It's a gigantic issue, but I'm friends with homosexuals, and I'm a strong Christian. Why do I not tell them they're going straight to hell? Because I believe that people with diffrent beliefs and values than mine should be loved and have the right to be just as happy as any, because God will judge them soon enough. They need support and belonging, not finger-pointing and people yelling "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL" at them. It just isn't right. Everyone is created equal, love your neighbor as yourself, no exceptions.
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Post by enigmaticviolinist on Jun 26, 2004 8:42:24 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2004 23:18:40 GMT -5
I can't stand it when I find all these different religious pamphlets in the mail, or stuck in the door. If people want to hand them out in public, that's fine, but I don't want them on my property. It's just like telemarketing.
I honestly think that some churches use a sly way to get their pamphlets and stuff handed out: they have elderly ladies walk door-to-door. No one can say "Get off my property or else," to them, it's really not a nice thing to do. It was kind of funny though, because my dad was trimming his beard once and they came to the door. He answered it with only one side of his beard trimmed, and received funny expressions.
I know that people believe others will go to heck if they don't convert, and they just want to "save" everyone, but don't they realize that many of those people think the same thing about them?
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Post by Kiddo on Jun 26, 2004 23:21:10 GMT -5
As I said "I would only ever give my belief to a god that didn't mind I wouldn't believe in it." Kind of a Catch 22 Wow. That's kind of depressing, in all honesty. Really depressing. Best analogy I can draw up for what that would be in my life would be me walking out on my family with a "so long, and thanks for all the fish." But, if you say you're doing just fine, than that's cool. I just... blah. Gives me a sick little feeling in my stomach to imagine God not caring about me like that... |
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Post by mushroom on Jun 27, 2004 0:20:02 GMT -5
Wow. That's kind of depressing, in all honesty. Really depressing. Best analogy I can draw up for what that would be in my life would be me walking out on my family with a "so long, and thanks for all the fish." But, if you say you're doing just fine, than that's cool. I just... blah. Gives me a sick little feeling in my stomach to imagine God not caring about me like that... I'm not Oily and she may mean something different, but the way I read that statement is that a truly benevolent god would judge a person on whether or not they truly and honestly did their best to be a good person, not whether or not they happened to believe God exists and worshipped Him/Her/It in the correct manner, and a god that isn't benevolent isn't worthy of worship no matter how powerful he/she/it is. |
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Post by KittyKadaveral on Jun 27, 2004 3:26:23 GMT -5
Think of it this way. If you know someone is hurting from a horrible disease or injury or something, and didn't know how to help themselves, wouldn't you want to do something? And if you did have something you could to do help, wouldn't you try everything in your power to get them to use it? I sure hope you don't mean that you see other people who either aren't Christian or believe in that as the disease or something. I know it's probably a misunderstanding, but that just sounds to me like that stuff folks of yore said about any Natives of any given country. Oh, they don't have God in their lives, poor stupid savages, we must save them. Bah...stuff and nonsense to say that about people. You can't seriously believe that only Christians are going to be in a Heaven or something. Does this mean that all the ancient Egyptians, Aboriginies (don't know the spelling) Aztecs, Incas, Native Americans, Africans, ancient Greeks, cavemen (sorry had to put that) are all burning in the firey pits of Hades? I don't think so. I don't need anyone 'saving' me because my choice of a god or religion is different. That sounds just as sad as my friend who's Jewish was being ragged on in my chat group by a Christian who felt sorry for her and wanted to save her. That's truly sad if you think about it. Pray for her to get through her tough times NOT because of her belief. |
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Post by Oily on Jun 27, 2004 11:33:48 GMT -5
Wow. That's kind of depressing, in all honesty. Really depressing. Best analogy I can draw up for what that would be in my life would be me walking out on my family with a "so long, and thanks for all the fish." But, if you say you're doing just fine, than that's cool. I just... blah. Gives me a sick little feeling in my stomach to imagine God not caring about me like that... And the curious thing is is that I've never been depressed in my life. In fact, I'm sickeningly happy all the time The god I would believe in would be caring - caring enough to judge people on themselves and not on their beliefs. What I was trying to say was more what KKM posted: I'm not Oily and she may mean something different, but the way I read that statement is that a truly benevolent god would judge a person on whether or not they truly and honestly did their best to be a good person, not whether or not they happened to believe God exists and worshipped Him/Her/It in the correct manner, and a god that isn't benevolent isn't worthy of worship no matter how powerful he/she/it is. I would only ever give belief to a god that wouldn't judge people on their beliefs, but on their "good-ness." |
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There's also a girl I try to avoid through IMs on AOL who after every sentance says she's blessed or Praise Jesus. Ok, that's a bit too far. It's good to be happy about your religion (if you have one) but to constantly shove it down someone's throat is a bit desperate I feel. 
