I only have a familiarity with Christianity and the “no other gods before me” thing. I am curious what other religions have to say about it.

  • theshatterstone54
    523·
    10 months ago

    Atheist here. My personal philosophy says to leave them alone as long as they leave me alone. If you start to preach or force it on me, I’ll do something in the range of: politely excuse myself, to tell you to fuck off, depending on how forceful, persistent, and annoying you are.

    But in almost all such encounters so far I’ve just smiled and nodded because it was often coming from people using religion to bring them comfort in difficult times, and they were often not forceful. And if they say things like “God bless you”, I take it as a sign of respect, because they often say it out of either gratitude or out of positive feelings towards me. I’ve been fortunate enough to not encounter many religious fanatics, though I’ve heard many stories of them and am ready to pull out the Ol’ Reliable in the form of “Hail Satan” if it gets to that.

    • PlexSheep@feddit.de
      112·
      10 months ago

      Same thing here, but I am worried about the influence of “magical thinking” on our society.

      • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
        6·
        10 months ago

        And you can’t escape this. Of course whether your neighbor goes to church on sunday is their choice to make. But in my opinion the state, schools etc should be secular. And they’re not. Religion influences politicians and people to have biases, for example towards abortion, gay marriage etc. and that definitely has an influence on law, my life and that of my fellow citizens. I think lots of christians forget what the word ‘evangelion’ (the gospel) means. It translates to “Good News”. And not not prohibition and trying to tell other people who they’re allowed to marry.

        • PlexSheep@feddit.de
          3·
          10 months ago

          Yeah, secularism is definitely something we should strive for. The effects of religion depend on which it is and which country we are talking of course.

          • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            10 months ago

            I mean the Age of Enlightenment happened in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. That’s a long time ago. I believe it’s (still) not part of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany / constitution, where I live. It’s somewhat different for the USA due to their history. But they have the more annoying conservative politicians and parts of society. I think as of now, major parts of the population don’t care anymore about what the founding fathers came up with in the late 18th century. So there’s no advantage there.

              • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
                2·
                10 months ago

                And we were a bit late to the party with same-sex marriage because of the party with ‘christian’ in the name…

                What I think is outrageous is that we have denominational hospitals, schools and kindergärten, and they don’t have to abide by the same labor law as literally everyone else. They can - and will - fire people for things like divorce. Or being gay. All whilst being (sometimes entirely) funded by the state or health insurance.

                And in my opinion we shouldn’t allow them to openly discriminate against women and gay people… Have a look at what the danish people did and force the catholic church to do same-sex marriages… and accept women as priests. I really don’t get why they get a special treatment when it gets to hating on people and they’re the only ones allowed to do it professionally.

    • MedicsOfAnarchy@lemmy.world
      7·
      10 months ago

      And if they say things like “God bless you”, I take it as a sign of respect

      Very different from someone in the South saying “God bless your heart”, which means they think you’re being stupid.