Can't we all get along?

Why are there so many people out their insulting and trying to change other's believes? Why is it there have been so many religious wars when most religions are against killing? Since when does everyone have to think alike?

I'm an atheist (and right now a bit of a disappointed humanist). I am proud but tolerant. Aren't we all suppose to get along? Why can't people just let people think differently then them? Everyone is different and should be free to believe what they want with out some one harassing them about "the errors of their ways." Ultimately why does it matter if i don't believe in a god and you do? We are still people.

 

Thanks for posting this. I really appreciate it and agree with it. I'm a Christian, and am interested in having discussions in which I can discuss and debate religious issues with Christians, atheists and people of other faiths. Lately, I have the impression that that's impossible on the Christian forum, because if anyone tries to start a serious discussion, others will immediately chime in with comments like "Christians cause all wars", Hitler was a Christian, or even (in my case) you're a dumb bible thumping hillbilly who sleeps with your cousins. Ironically, I've had far better luck in the atheist forum, where there seems to be a better climate of civility. You are obviously a decent, caring person, and I admire you for that, no matter what your religion, or lack thereof.

 

I think it's just terrible that people pretty much attack people sometimes because of a difference of believe. Like if you believed blue was the best color, and I liked red, no one would have a problem with that, but for some reason religion has to be different.

I really enjoy talking and learning about different religions. And debating my believes is fun, but I don't take it to a personal level and I try to know when to back off and never cross the line.

 

Of Course We Can

Hugs!!

Much Love!

 

Religion/philosophy is somehow different from merely having a different favorite color from someone else. It profoundly affects one's world view and how and why things happen. It metaphorically colors one's world.

It is deeply unsettling to give serious consideration to an alternate world view once one's own is sufficiently developed. For many persons, the formation of one's world view is sufficiently developed around puberty or perhaps even earlier, and for others perhaps later in one's teens. For persons who have de-converted from Catholicism or Protestantism to non-belief, for instance, there is usually a transitional period in which virtually everything they know about the world is re-examined, as if seen through a new lens. Going in the opposite direction usually entails a profound change in one's outlook as well, as practically anyone who knows someone who claims to be a "born again" Christian may have observed.

Religious beliefs are very hard to let go of (screw the grammarians who claim you can't end a sentence in a preposition -- because of this parenthetical comment, I have not, so there). This is the primary reason it is usually not fruitful to argue about religious differences with a goal of changing the other person's mind. A secondary reason is that it is generally regarded as impolite and possibly disrespectful or intolerant, or even confrontational to discuss religious beliefs in polite company.

I'm not saying it is impolite to discuss religion and religious differences. It's just that one must be careful to select the proper time and place and company in which to do it. Furthermore, one must be realistic about the goal of the discussion. This is a good forum for discussing religious differences, provided the participants remain calm and cool and civil to one another. Obviously, passions can be inflamed and it can remain difficult to stay cool in such discussions. These topics often involve issues that cut right to the core of a person's being and essence. Upset it too much and you upset the person.

Yes, in principle we can all get along. Unfortunately, too many religious beliefs, especially those of the revealed religions, entail a duty to convert the unconverted, to rid the world of infidels, or to assume they are God's chosen people and honor and cherish their history of persecution and ultimately regard everyone else as an outsider, at least culturally and ethnically, if not socially. These are divisive principles, not tolerant ones.

Personally, I find those who do not believe (I prefer "non-believer" to "atheist," as the latter has unfortunate connotations in the US and conjures images of devil worshipers who eat babies for breakfast) to be more tolerant of those with different beliefs than adherents of the Abrahamic faiths. My opinion is not a knock on their moral beliefs; instead it's an observation that intolerance seems to be an inherent result of any faith that holds as one of its principal tenets that there is only one true path to God.

Except for militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (both for whom I have a deep and abiding respect), non-believers do not seem to have this problem.

 

we certainly can, and the day will come when we will.

it is only fanatacism and the political exploitation of fanatacism that prevents us from doing so now. that ever has.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Isn't the quest for power and dominance over other individuals and groups an inevitable part of the human condition?

If so, doesn't it necessarily imply that "we" will continue not to get along in peace and harmony? When was there ever a substantial period of time since civilization began when one political/cultural group wasn't doing battle with another, or at least one subjugating another through slavery, genocide, or some other form of persecution or exploitation?

War somewhere, somehow, among at least some significant groups of persons seems to be the norm, not the exception. It seems overly optimistic or even naive to believe that humans can live in peace and harmony all over the world.

Look at our most closely related species -- chimps. There we find plenty of evidence of fighting for the right to mate with females within groups, and for territory and dominance between groups. Humans are animals too. Why presume we are somehow above our most primal and basic instinctual needs and tendencies?

 

Have you checked out the anti-Christian hate speech on the so-called "Christian" Fourm? I think my own motives for getting involved with Hip Forums was to discuss issues of interest with people of other religious or non-religious persuasion. My own views have evolved considerably, and are continuing to evolve as I think and re-think about these questions. I welcome lively debate. But being called names doesn't advance understanding in any way. I've disagreed with you strongly on a number of issues, but I respect you as someone who gives thoughtful, informed responses. There are lots of other non-believers I could say the same thing about. Unfortunately, there are a few who seem mainly interested in venting their hatred and settling past scores.

 

Nice posts Ignatius.Ah yes--the quest for power.It will in the end, I think,be the downfall of at least the human race,if not the rest of sentient life.It's a shame,but "those who lead and have led" can't seem to get past it.There are those that think we were "put here" by god/s and those that think it's all an accident of some kind.Seems like humans with all their religions,philosophical musings and some kind of a sense of right and wrong could have gotten it together somewhere along the way.We all want to go on forever,but I see no great loss if humankind disappears from earth.Maybe a cosmic gain.If we were ever to be able to travel great distances thru space--it would be the same human crap/frailties only spread elsewhere.

 

quite simply, no it isn't.

not inevitable at all.

the "human condition" is pure and utter myth. perpetuated by those who exploit conning everyone into believing in it.

when there is no encentive for them to do so, no lever by which to do so, then they can not.

we simply don't HAVE TO keep buying into it.

and some one of these days we will have stopped buying into it, or we will be no more, because of what we will have blindly done to our environment our existence depends upon.

been motivated to do, as we are being motivated to do, by the lies and distractions we are being manipulated by.

even the manipulaters don't seem to realize, that they are being themselves manipulated by a concept, that of symbolic value primarily, in which they, nor anyone, can ever find any sort of real gratification.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Thank you.

I'm not quite as pessimistic about the lot of it. I disagree with something I find implicit in your notion that somewhere along the way we should have gotten it together. I think that's a common notion among Westerners with an enlightened, classically liberal viewpoint. I might even call some of those persons political idealists.

I think many more of our common tendencies and behaviors as humans are innate and far more immutable on a practical level -- at least within the span of one human lifetime -- than we tend to believe. As individuals we differ in varous ways from each other, of course, and each of us is shaped by our genes and by our environment, and by our parental and other social influences as children. As a species, however, I doubt much of our instinctive behaviors have changed much in the past 100,000 years or so. Living in civilization necessitates that we learn to curb many of our urges and tendencies, and to let our inhibitions keep a check on the more socially disruptive ones most of the time. They remain within us, however, and it's difficult to deny that. I'm referring to what many of us regard as primal urges.

Returning to my main point, I see no progress towards some ideal, goal, or more perfect standard for human behavior. I don't even believe in such a thing. We will never even agree on what ideal human behavior would be. How could we possibly as a species evolve into quasi-perfect beings with ideal behavior if we can't even define it?

That's not how evolution works anyway. It isn't progressing towards any goal. Evolution by means of natural selection is a process of incremental changes that build up over successive generations due to random genetic variations and mistakes in our DNA as two persons contribute their genes to create a new person. Evolution is thus a series of random variations in DNA that accumulate. There is also a sexual selective pressure on any given population. The individuals within a population whose genes allow them to be sexually attractive to the opposite sex (sexual selection) procreate more often and tend to produce more offspring in the aggregate than those who are not attractive, and as a result their genes tend to dominate within later populations as they spread among the successive generations. Furthermore, those groups who share similar genetic characteristics that allow them to adapt the best to changing conditions on our planet and in our own local ecosystems are the ones who survive and who pass on their genes over time (natural selection).

It is thus that the species that remain are the ones that are best adapted to the most recent changes in environmental conditions. They only seem "designed" to fit perfectly within their respective environments because over time, their ancestors' DNA accumulated the changes necessary for them to survive and thus adapt to their changing environment. Other branches of their evolutionary tree did not survive, and consequently they no longer exist. That's why those that remain seem adapted for their respective environments and seem to have a role to play within their ecosystems.

This process presumably will continue until some cataclysmic event causes the extinction of humans, which could be something as relatively innocuous as a virus that kills all of us, or it could be as the result of a large scale nuclear war, or some other catastrophe. Who knows?

Life, however, will likely continue to evolve and exist in various forms on our planet until our sun exhausts its hydrogen fuel and expands into a red giant, thereby either engulfing the earth, or getting so close and so hot as to literally melt its surface and much of the rest of it, possibly even to its iron core. That will surely be the end of life on earth, forever. No worries, as it probably won't happen for another 5 billion years or so.

As for the colonization of other solar systems or even other galaxies, I think that's a pipe dream, albeit a nice one. We evolved with characteristics that allow us to live on this particular planet, with its particular environmental conditions at this particular time in its history. Even with the hundreds of other planets we have recently discovered in the last ten years or so, it's extremely unlikely that any of those satisfy the conditions required for us to survive on them, and most of them are too far away for us to get to them plausibly anyway.

Finding a planet similar enough to Earth that would enable us to inhabit it, assuming at least some exist, would likely take us to a far enough corner of the universe that we could never get there in a self-sustaining ship capable of carrying enough water and oxygen, or extracting enough hydrogen from deep space to produce water, much less carry enough food or artificial environment to grow it, for the millions or even hundreds of millions of years it might take to reach such a far away place. That would be the case even if we were traveling at speeds near the speed of light, which would be an engineering miracle in itself.

I think for all intents and purposes, we're earthbound creatures in the long haul. We may indeed eventually create colonies on Mars, but I suspect that's it. Even if some of Jupiters' moons turn out to have conditions similar enough to Earth's, Jupiter's gravitational influence would probably render any attempt to live there unsustainable. Never mind the vastly greater distance that would be from the sun. We simply wouldn't get enough energy to survive there.

Oh my. I've drifted way off topic for this thread. Pardon me.

 

No, I haven't checked out those other forums, so I can't say I'm familiar with any anti-Christian hate speech there, although I don't doubt there is quite a bit of it. Perhaps some of it is a backlash at having grown up with religious belief all around, and having abandoned or discarded it, but still finding persons all around you marginalizing you from society for your lack of belief. Perhaps that backlash, assuming one exists, engenders some of the negative feelings. I'm speaking from the perspective of my own feelings and experiences, but I don't feel particularly strong about it. Furthermore, I would hardly characterize my own feelings or behavior as hate. Again, I don't doubt there are plenty who do exhibit hatred, however.

It's not quite fair to overgeneralize and paint non-believers with a broad brush in that regard.

Furthermore, I could cite you plenty of examples of non-believers being taunted, shunned, ostracized, and marginalized socially -- at school, in the workplace, and in the community. My point is there's plenty of hate to go around from both sides of the fence, unfortunately. My point was that intolerance towards those not within the faith seems to be an inevitable consequence of the three main Abrahamic faiths simply due to one of their core tenets, as each of them espouse it in their respective manners. I don't think that same intolerance towards others' beliefs is an inherent feature of merely being a non-believer.

Anyway, thank you again for your kind remarks. I respect you as well, and I admire your insight, your maturity, your depth and breadth of knowledge, and your ability to communicate clearly and eloquently. You are certainly a civil, humble, and respectful poster and you seem like a fine gentleman as well.

 

Pardon me for saying so, but I think thousands of years of history and modern political science or philosophy would tend to supply evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, literature tends to be chock full of commentary, description, and illustraton of what some academics refer to as "the human condition."

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but what you describe sounds a lot like anti-establishmentism or even anarchy. Isn't it at least a little ironic to suggest abandoning the task of governing and the rule of law in the name of peace and harmony?

Anarchy does not and never has led to peace and harmony. Indeed, political power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Do away with one government or despot, and another one will replace it in short order. Being social creatures and living in groups demands hierarchy. Hierarchy implies leadership and dominance by some, and the ruling of and possible oppression or subjugation of the governed.

On a small scale, even communes need leaders to be decision makers and enforcers of basic rules among the group. If anything is a myth, it's the notion that we can all hold hands across the world and buy the world a Coke and sing in harmony.

 

I'm putting some thought into what you have posted,but I'm not sure I'll answer you point by point.I'm going to try to hypothesize what I think needs to happen in order to make this earth and it's inhabitants healthy ,happy and secure.BIG chore and I may fail,but I'm going to get to the bottom line and work backwards, trying to address nuances as I go.By the way,it's nice to have a thoughtful poster contributing to the forums.

 

Cool. There's no hurry. Sort it out in your head or sleep on it or whatever, and post whenever you feel like it. I'll be happy to read it.

What a cool thing to say! Thanks again. For what it's worth, I'm enjoying the discussions I'm having with you and others in the few threads I've posted in. Take it easy, and I hope to hear from you again soon.

 

Wow! What an ambitious and worthy project! I think we're all waiting to see what you come up with. Then, if you can figure out how to get the governments to go along, you ought to run for President!

 

No, we can't 'all' get along because of extremists threatening to kill infidels. The majority of people can be civil and tolerant though. As long as people don't try and ram their beliefs down my throat with aggression while being patronising, telling me i'm going to hell, it's all good. I don't force my atheist beliefs on anyone, people sometimes forget these personal choices are sometimes best left as personal choices. Conflicts can definately occur because of religious differences, it's a very hot topic.