Grandparents' Theism

[Erxomai]

Just wait a little longer and you'll have someone tell you that you need to blast them out of water with your anti-theism.

[Chas]

(02-08-2012 12:57 PM)Erxomai Wrote:  Just wait a little longer and you'll have someone tell you that you need to blast them out of water with your anti-theism.

Fortunately, you only got the nice, helpful people on this post.

I would never blast anyone.

[Erxomai]

(02-08-2012 03:26 PM)Chas Wrote:  

(02-08-2012 12:57 PM)Erxomai Wrote:  Just wait a little longer and you'll have someone tell you that you need to blast them out of water with your anti-theism.

Fortunately, you only got the nice, helpful people on this post.

I would never blast anyone.

But you might be terse with them.

[Red Celt]

My own position is that I refuse to let my beliefs be hidden or subsumed into the beliefs of others. I have my beliefs. They have their beliefs. I don't demand that they share mine, so I sure as hell don't expect anything different from them.

It might make life a little more difficult, but honesty is worth a little difficulty.

In my youth, I did something naughty. It was a victimless crime, but it was a crime nonetheless and I was caught doing it. In the magistrates court, I was stood infront of 3 people who would decide my fate. Their impressions of me mattered.

When I was handed the card to read my oath, I saw an oath that would have me swear to tell the truth in the name of a god I didn't believe in. I turned to the guy who handed the card to me and said "I can't swear this oath". He then directed me to flip the card over, where there was a secular version.

If 2 or more of those magistrates were Christians, I was dooming myself to an unpleasant verdict... but honesty mattered more than that.

The same is true with my family (very few of whom are theists). They take me for who I am, or not at all.

[Mr Woof]

You say you are a skeptic. Good, that is preferable in my view, to hard core know it all atheists for a start.

As for your grand parents I would never deprive anyone of comforting non dangerous beliefs simply because I do not share them.

Many things are existentially possible within this weird , frustrating, confusing, but also exciting cosmos......

[Hidden_Potential]

(02-08-2012 06:48 PM)Mr Woof Wrote:  You say you are a skeptic. Good, that is preferable in my view, to hard core know it all atheists for a start.

As for your grand parents I would never deprive anyone of comforting non dangerous beliefs simply because I do not share them.

Many things are existentially possible within this weird , frustrating, confusing, but also exciting cosmos......

I'm only 18 so I don't really feel that I'm in a position to have an extreme set in stone viewpoint, but I do require a lot of proof for claims involving deities or the supernatural. And I know that my grandparents' views don't hurt them in any way, or me in any damaging way, it just makes me uncomfortable. I would rather be uncomfortable every here and there than destroy their views or make them worry about me, and chances are I'll be looking for other things to talk about when they bring it up so I can get to know them better and wont have to say too much about my views to them. When I weigh it out, I just want to do what I can to make them happy without lying to them or myself