People on Digg make me so angry sometimes. There’s an article on the front page today that says “Believers are happier than atheists”. All the top comments are along the lines of this:
Well of course they are, they live in a dream world. Its GOT to be nicer than the real one :)
I’m sorry, I must have missed that study that proved God doesn’t exist and all religions are wrong. I don’t understand these people. What is so wrong with believing in something? Sure, you can’t prove God exists, but you can’t prove the opposite either! Everyone has to take their best guess. Is it so wrong to be optimistic and believe that bad things happen for a reason, that there is greater meaning to life, that we exist in some form beyond death? Does it hurt anyone? Even if it’s not true, which we don’t know, is it so wrong to believe in something if it makes you happy?
Religions are harmful when wars are fought over them, when people kill for their beliefs. When someone is discriminated against, or they feel like they’re a bad person for doing something that isn’t really wrong. Religions may do more harm than good sometimes, but they really do a lot of good too.
They give people a community, they give comfort, they help those who can’t help themselves. I’m not a religious person, and I don’t agree with most religious concepts, but it really bugs me when people call anyone with any religious beliefs ignorant, naive or stupid. How can you criticize people for not being open minded, for pushing their beliefs on other people, when you’re doing the same to them?
If someone wants to believe that there are little invisible fairies flying around throwing pixie dust on things to make them move, I say, hey, let them believe whatever they want. I can’t prove there are no fairies, so who am I to judge. Is any one belief really better than another?
–edit– And I made a small update to the site. The top commenter sidebar plugin was really stupid in that it grouped the commenters by name instead of url, so the right name would show up with the wrong URL. It’s fixed now. Took me about 2 minutes. How can you write a semi-complicated plugin but do something stupid like that. I don’t get it. –/edit–
My husband isn’t an Athiest so much as just a non-believer, simply because he has no reason to believe. He claims that when he sees or feels something he’ll change his tune. I, on the other hand, fully believe in God.
Guess what? We’ve known of each other’s views on religion and beliefs since we first started dating, which was almost eight years. Yet we manage to co-exist with them just fine. It really is about respect, and not trying to explain away a belief or lack there of.
Yeah, I agree with Jenn on how it’s about respect and not anything else.
Anyways, as for the plugin. LOL. Maybe I should edit that for my own use also? LOL, what I have is a listing of everybody who’s ever commented on a page that no one can see. =P LOL. Hmm, I can see a problem for that, though. What if 2 people have… Say “Jenn” as their name, but they’re 2 different people?
That’s why it groups by URL not name, that’s the change I made
I’m glad you don’t see any belief as better than another. It’s annoying when I find people who are so obsessed with what they believe in or don’t believe in.
Totally agree with Jenn. I couldn’t quite care what someone believes in or doesn’t believe in. It’s really up to them and is not in my jurisdiction to judge them. It is all about respect for others’ beliefs after all. :D
And there are two sides to the story to this too. There are believers out there who think that they are ordained by God or something to shove their beliefs down non-believers’ throat.
Sigh. Humans.
I’m so happy to see I am not the only one who wrote on this issue. On my blog I talked about the exact same concepts and addressed how many of the comments that were ‘dugg up’ at high levels and how they themselves were the ones being intolerant.
Thanks for writing on this, alot of people feel the same way. You can see what I wrote about at http://mywisegeneration.blogspot.com/2008/03/atheists-on-digg-espouse-religious.html.
Ok, what the hell? I guessed I was reading that wrong the first time… LOL. Sorry about that! Haha, now I’m the one that looks dumb… =P
Well said, Lissy!
Thanks for my plug down there *points* btw. I need all the cheering I can get. lol.
I am yet another person that agrees with Jenn and with what you say.
I am a born and bred Catholic (whether I am a good one is a whole other topic in itself) and personally believe that anyone should be entitled to their own beliefs. I believe that whether or not one believes in God, it’s only dangerous when one starts expecting others to believe in their beliefs and will take measures to change it.
I think the concept of belief or non-belief is beautiful, whatever the belief or non-belief may be. If it gives people a sense of comfort or community and overall makes them happy, as you said, then I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. Nor do I believe I have any place at all to judge them.
Well-written post. =)