qwe, on a rational level, I can see exactly what brought a lot of people to vocally hate religion. I'd never be so unkind as to argue pro-religion with someone who'd been molested by a clergyperson, for example, or someone who'd been expelled from their religious community for their sexual orientation.
But call it Skinnerian conditioning, but antireligious speech and writing is something on a visceral level that I will never cotton to. I'm just not a natural born iconoclast or firestarter. I don't see there being a greater good to uprooting people from what gives them a sense of rootedness.
if the church i am talking about discovered an "indecent sexual orientation", they'd get more than just ostracized
i'm talking about getting ostracized for just having a girlfriend/boyfriend or hanging out with someone of the opposite sex or getting a divorce or saying something bad about the church
and, of course, i could point to radical islam, the crusades and witch burning, etc
religion causes problems, it's a fact. religion has become politicized, because religion has power; especially, starting around the reagan era, when the republican party started its massive propaganda campaign to suck in millions (literally) of voters who had never voted before because they felt religion and politics shouldn't mix
religion stagnates society, it is basically DESIGNED to prevent progress, to eliminate questions before they can harm institutions/powers
i know it has good points. i know it helps many people be happy or grow spiritually, but happiness from things such as believing in peter pan, it usually comes at a very high societal price...
---
that said, i'm a huge fan of "live, let live". i think people should be able to believe what they want, peoples' minds are their minds. i don't care if people have beliefs that i consider crazy; i believe that, as society progresses and as it has been progressing, we are shedding little by little these religious memes
now, you find *anti-religious* writing offensive. personally, i don't find ANYTHING offensive, i think we as humans need to learn to just chill out. but if i was offended by either side, i would feel that anti-religious writing is "stepping stones of progress", while religious writing would be offensive to me, because of the things i have been mentioning
if anything should be offensive in regards to religion, imo, it should be pro-religious memes
even with this belief, i don't get offended or anything by people who have religious beliefs or by any vocal pro-religious stuff. people can think what they want. i just see religion as one more tool of ignorance in the world, one more thing we are slowly but surely shedding. i don't care if someone believes in religion, i "have faith" (hehehe) that someday these things will go the way of the dodo, and meanwhile, who cares, people can believe whatever crazy things they want
---
unfortunately, i have to put up with problems in my life due to others' religious upbringings. and i see people trying to live their lives, trying to not have that HUGE brainwashing effect (yes, i know we are all brainwashed in many ways even in nonreligious families and in nonreligious ways, but religion is one of the "big things" in regards to brainwashing) their lives and destroy it, and i see people fail and really get burned by that upbringing, said upbringing usually being very negative due to moral beliefs. it is sad
spirituality, that is an entirely different matter from religion though... i consider myself a spiritual person
