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Reply 22 of 70 (Originally posted on: 05-13-05 10:08:51 PM)
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Quoted from Drahnier:
That's a good point.
How come people who claim that aliens from other planets have visited earth are viewed as maniacs, but people who dedicate their lives to serving an obscure omnipotent being that can't be seen or touched but created everything in some strange way that we can't know about, because an ancient story book says that it's true, are considered completely normal?
I mean, UFO sightings are usually dismissed as part of some mass psychosis, and everyone thinks that the people who have them are these poor misguided freaks with overactive imaginations.
While the only proof most religious people can offer to back up their faith is that they've "felt the lords presence", and they can FEEL that he's guiding them through life, but when someone says something like that, it's perfectly accepted.
It's even CELEBRATED a lot of the time.
I know, and this thread is proof that people don't think religious fanatics are freaks!
Let me bring up a point that may clear this up a little.
The religious person who claims that they feel the presence of God in their life is the equivalent to the person who has seen UFOs on a regular basis and mentions to people that they exist. We get the same kind of fuzzy looks from people, but as long as we're not raping farm animals no one gets threatened by it.
The religious person who runs around singing "praise jay-zus" or its equivalent in a different religion is like the UFO person who claims to have been abducted and predicts a holocaust of Earth. Both are trying to convince people they're fucked, both have the same kind of nutball enthusiasm, and both are oblivious to the fact that people either don't give a shit or people aren't taking them seriously. However, they're so convinced they're right, they don't care what anyone else thinks. At least, not until something comes up that makes them question themselves -- then they get quiet for a little bit.
The religious person who has visions and prompts jihad and starts claiming to wield the "sword of heaven" is like the UFO person who has seen the UFO, has been inside the UFO, has helped the aliens decorate the UFO, has had three alien children, and currently helps the aliens design their new Death Star. These people start out with the zeal of the second person, but somewhere along the line they lose touch with everything around them. As people like the otherworldly notion and these people are pretty much out of this world they attract attention of sorts. However, the results of tracking them and believing them often becomes destructive. These are the people who carry all the paraphrenalia of their beliefs with them, they shout their beliefs in the streets and damn those who won't join them, and they become irritable when it is ever suggested that they are wrong. Dangerous, dangerous people if you get on their bad side because either [insert deity] or [insert alien] is going to possess them and try to kill you.
Despite historical zeal for saying "Church WAZ LYFE 4EVA UNTIL NOW!!!!" there were atheists throughout time, making the exact same points that some of you are making. Our society seems exceptionally disillusioned (that may be in part because we're living in the thick of some bad shit), but so was theirs and they probably felt the same way about their societies. People like the first religious person and UFO spotter are the ones who make atheists and skeptics question the possibility of religion or extraterrestiality (I don't know if that's the right word). However, people like the third group have always turned everyone -- sometimes even truly religious people -- off.
When Troth asked Senich whether any of his supervisors had ever told him to stop swearing, he recalled that Corky Krollman, who was Senich's supervisor for a time, told him on several occasions, "'Senich, clean up your fucking act.'"
With that, Leighton's head fell to the table.
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