Hypocrisy by ATS Members with Religious Threads

Howdy all,

I am a fairly tolerant person. I accepted Christ as my savior at age 12, was baptized much later in life, studied world religion and philosophy in school and continue to battle my base self on a daily basis.

ATS is a great experience. There is a wealth of knowledge available to those willing to stretch their comfort zone. I do have to say that, like anything on this planet, there are a few things that bother me about the community. This thread is going to deal with one and that is the mob attacks on an individual's faith.

In the truest sense of the word conspiracy I do see more than one person conspiring to set traps for unsuspecting forum participants, with the sole intent being to personally attach their faith. This is no worse or better than the other conspiracies discussed in this section of the forum board.

Here is the model I see:

The trap - A thread will be posted with a sincere question like "Hey Christians why do you blah, blah, blah...I really wanna know. K, Bye."

We'll use the analogy of the girl hitchhiking. This is the girl with her thumb out.

The victim - The thread always starts out with earnest people trying to answer the original question.

This is the guy that pulls over the give the hitchhiker a ride.

The heist - At this point a wave of mobsters usually picks one respondent and attacks him personally, as if trying to prove to themselves that this representative will validate their personal feeling of disdain towards the faith.

These are the guys that are hiding and waiting for the bait to hook the fish.

The abuse - Once there is a sacrifice for the mob, they are a relentless pack of dogs that is never satisfied and their attacks escalate to monstrous.

This is heinous act that gets reported in the paper.

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So here is my question. Why profess to seek understanding when the plan is to kill those who oppose your belief?

Why be a hypocrite and pretend?

What happened that requires you to tear down another person just to satisfy your disbelief?

Is it possible to conduct yourself in a respectful manner? If not, can you just avoid the thread all together?

Peace. Whatever your belief, I hope that honesty with yourself top the list.

---

Wow. This thread was moved out of the forum where the problem occurs and too an entirely different forum board URL. "There is no iceberg" I guess.


[edit on 25-7-2010 by zroth]

Originally posted by zroth
Peace. Whatever your belief, I hope that honesty with yourself top the list.

These are the wisest words I have read in a while. If only people could look in the mirror and be honest with themselves.

See both the good and the bad in yourself, and accept it, only then will you be able to walk with your head held high, as you will understand.

Be honest with who you are, what you think, and how you act.

If you don't like what you see, change it. Only you have that power.........

reply to post by zroth

I agree.
you should check this thread out, it is a good read.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

In there the basic couple threads posted in CiR are laid out. The one you pointed out is 3, the stuid question thread.

It is a crap shoot 1/2 of them will get moved to BTS rant and the other 1/2 stay in CiR. I am not sure what the deciding factor is. For the most part CiR really only has a variation of 4-5 threads that come up over and over
1. Brainwashing children
2. There is no god/jesus (there is a variation of this which really is just "you guys are wrong"
3. Stupid question thread (like If there is a god then why don't...)
4. OMG look at them (usually just ridiculing some group)
5. The pro religion thread

There may be a few more but that pretty much sums up the CiR board.
Oh yeah if forgot there is another one, a little more rare but the classic

6.jehovah's witnesses(or other group) came knocking on my door and i totaly told them off and asked them a bunch of questions and they could not answer and man im so bad





[edit on 26-7-2010 by zaiger]

As for moving, a "conspiracy" in religion, is just that. The poster should be claiming that there is a conspiracy, supporting that assumption, etc. in order to be in ATS, otherwise, it's a BTS Faith and Spirituality thread.

If about the membership, then it's usually going to be put in Rant. (I didn't even move this, but just explaining the thought process we go through, when moving a thread).

As for why some do this...(bait others), some just want to flex their atheistic muscles etc. Some honestly do want real answers from those of the affiliated faith.

Personally, I could care less about the motive, but just participate if I think it's a good discussion. I am a spiritual person, just not one of an organized religion.

reply to post by Gazrok


I appreciate the insight. I do agree, in retrospect that is does not belong in the other forum.

Cheers

reply to post by zaiger



Thanks for the link. I am going through the thread now.

One of the problems of course is deciding what IS a conspiracy and what is not. I do believe that many of the threads should be chit chat and out of ATS, but then again you see my personal view is that all religions are themselves a conspiracy. Not a conspiracy by the rank and file, but by the upper echelons of a religion.

Of the main religions, with one exception, I am of the opinion that the real reason behind (the continuance of) these religions is control, power and money.

Christianity as an example seems to me to have mutated so far from its original concept that it is almost unrecognisable and the reason for the mutation was almost exclusively money. This is not to deny that there are good people who are Christians, Muslims, Jews etc that believe and that live their lives in accordance with their beliefs, but the power brokers at the top do not. Even having said that it is not necessarily the individual at the top, for instance the Pope, but rather the organisation behind it all.

I am always interested to hear how others use their beliefs, but I grind my teeth at the inconsiderate put downs that are used against people on both sides on the argument. The pitying put down is the worst. The Atheist putting down the Christian or vice versa.

Having said that I do love a good fight discussion but that usually brings up the 'angry' card. The 'angry' card REALLY makes me angry. :bnghd: Just because someone disagrees with what I think does not make ME angry. They seem incapable of handling anything contrary and retaliate with what in effect are insults.

I usually have to temper the wish to strangle them ( ) with the thought that they are probably young and have not learned how to be completely cantankerous and intolerant yet calm and collected yet, something that comes more with age.

Sorry that ended up as a bit of a rant, I suppose because it is not easy to say that in the heat of a ___________ (discussion / argument / outright war). Fill in the appropriate word or words.

Basically what I really think is that no person has the right to categorically state than another person's belief is rubbish / nonsense / a lie / BS etc and by the same token no one has the right to preach their own brand of religion AT anyone else. I also consider it wrong to tell someone that their belief is a crutch. That is just so rude.

I was on one thread which I don't think you were on and one poster who I had been in discussion with (in my normal atheist way) said all of a sudden that he had found great comfort from his religion and his church when his wife had died. I have to say we had been going at it hammer and tongs, but at that point I just had to say that I was glad that he had gained comfort from his church and that was what they are there for.

I had better stop there.

Thanks for the opportunity to get all that off my atheist chest!!

Originally posted by PuterMan

Having said that I do love a good fight discussion but that usually brings up the 'angry' card. The 'angry' card REALLY makes me angry. :bnghd: Just because someone disagrees with what I think does not make ME angry. They seem incapable of handling anything contrary and retaliate with what in effect are insults.

I totally feel you on that one.

It seems that there is no yielding these day to hear an opposing view.

Life would be so boring if we were all clones.