The Stupid Religious Conversation I overheard + Fear

I was at work the other day (I work at a library) and there were three people sitting in chairs near where I was shelving books.

They were having a pretty loud conversation about religion. I am not 100% about who they were, but there were 2 female young adults and one older female adult. The 2 younger were questioning the older one about her religious beliefs.

If you are ready to feel like smacking your face into the wall, continue reading.

At one point they asked her something about the fact how christianity has so many branches and the lady went onto say (this is all paraphrased, I don't have THAT great of a memory)
"Well I don't think there should be so many branches of the same religion. We should all just practice the same thing because we believe the same thing. I don't know why we don't. It makes more sense. We should all just be one religion. I know that there are lots of other religions but there should just be the one since we all believe the same thing"

She obviously doesn't know her history. Even I don't know too much religious history, but I know enough to know that religions have split into smaller little ones, like how we have protestants, puritans, anglicans, etc, for various historical reasons. Although I do think it is stupid how religions still aren't letting some things go, I understand the reasoning behind it.

Anyways, the two girls always responded with justifying what she said by saying things like "It seems you don't care about the details and you just need to look at the facts and need to justify it."

The lady went on again for a while "I mean a lot of this doesn't make sense to me, like jesus being resurrected, it makes no logical sense. Jesus was born from a virgin, it doesn't make sense. I know a lot about my religion, well I don't know a lot about it but I have heard it all in church. You just have to believe."

"So the details aren't as important to you"

"The details don't matter to me, the history doesn't matter to me. I've been going to church since I was a kid and the details don't really matter."

"So the facts don't matter to you. That makes sense."

I missed a lot of the conversation, as I was working, but I did here them start talking about other religious beliefs like mormonism and buddhism.

I actually had to restrain myself from entering the conversation. They had no idea what they were talking about.

Essentially throughout the whole conversation this woman basically admitted that there are so many things that don't make sense in the bible, in her religion, but that those things don't matter to her and that she chooses to ignore them and continue her faith.

This is why people are still theists. People are afraid of being wrong, they are afraid of being a non-conformist, they are afraid to go back on the views they once held and carry on new ones.

You can't prove god exists, you can't not prove he exists. This is why agnosticism makes so much sense, but yet, I am an atheist.

This is the type of thing that makes me want to scream it from the mountaintops, broadcast it on TV, hand out brochures... the only analyzation, the one idea I always come back to in my discoveries is that people fear being wrong.

When you are in a debate and you suddenly decide you like the other idea better, are you going to confess that? No! Of course not! How embarrassing is that? Well 90% of our population believes in a god that doesn't exist, so I'd say it's more embarrassing to not switch sides when you realize the other side is right, because then you are contributing to a societal fallacy. Fallacy isn't the word I am looking for, mistake? I am not sure.

I rarely do, but if I do discover the other side is correct, or maybe even slightly correct, like if I am debating the existence of god and the other side does make a good point, I do commend them on their point and see its value. I continue my arguments because I am an atheist, although this one little point hasn't swayed me, I do tell them if it is a valid point.

I am not saying that if one little point on the other side is right, completely change your views, and I am not even telling you to be open-minded. The only thing I am asking you is to confess if you are wrong.

The one thing we don't need more of in society is lies and deceit controlling us. Truthiness is important.

We don't want our history textbooks (tablets, applications..) depicting our generation as a fiction novel, we want it to be non-fiction.

So stop believing in things that don't make sense. Use logic.

They are just words

I'm not ignorant.

I am aware of the historical and social implications of the word nigger.
I am aware of the historical and social implications of the word cunt.

But you know what? They are sounds that come from mouths. If I just say the word nigger, with no context and not directed at a person, does it really have meaning? I suppose so. But I just think it is so weird that a sound that comes through one's mouth can have so many implications, societally.

Even though I know the word bitch is used more carefree than cunt, I honestly don't see the difference. One is just hated a lot more than another one.

I don't want to be screamed at every time I say cunt, so I don't say cunt.

I just don't understand how some sounds that come out of some mouths are so terrible. I say fuck quite a bit, and I just don't see it. I don't know.

I think this is just me trying to be all non-conformist. I want to say that it shouldn't matter if I am at a fancy dinner party, and I let the f bomb fly. It doesn't matter to me, honestly. But then again, I am probably not going to swear at some fancy event, or at least consciously.

I hate censorship so much. Socially, it is stupid. It really is. I would rather see random people naked on the street all the time, then never be able to say the word fuck again. And I really don't want to see nudists everywhere. I just hate censorship so much.

To me, censorship just represents this whole larger picture of the government and society suppressing things. When I hear somebody say something like "Don't swear!" I just internally think "Why?" and then I hear the response "Because it is inappropriate" then in my head, I again respond "Why?" "WELL I DON'T KNOW!" Would be the response. It just represents this blind commitment to something stupid.

This is what I hate about society. How easily people just do things just because other people are doing them. Sure, I do a lot, if not most of the things in my life, because other people are, but at least I am AWARE OF IT. I have a conscious working mind.

One time I said "Crap" and a couple of 10 year olds were like "WHOA YOU SWORE". What? No. Crap is crap. I'm pretty sure I've heard "crap" on disney channel before.

The amount of things in this life that if you ask "Why" to enough, and you eventually come to no answer, just make me want to punch a puppy.

I swear, if I didn't ever take history in school, I would never have developed my philosophical mind, and likely wouldn't be thinking this way.

Right now I even want to not publish this post. I feel like negative feedback might be something that might happen. I do that a lot with my blog posts. I am just kind of like "Should I?" "What will people say/think?". Why the fuck am I doing that? I just need to post this. Stop worrying about what other people will think.

Geez. Fuck. Crap. Shit. Bitch. Whore. Cunt. Nigger. Jackass. Poophead. Brontosaurus.

All the same to me, just not society. 

I change so often because I have a fish brain- Why Philosophy?

I have the crappiest memory.

I do not want to talk about that, here, now. But just let the record show that I can't remember shit.

Recently I was like "Why am I studying philosophy?".

I honestly had no idea why. I didn't remember selecting to study philosophy at any point. I knew that I blogged a lot about my choices for university, so I was looking through. Nothing. I found stuff that talked about me possibly wanting to do phys ed, psychology, wanting to be a teacher, not wanting to do anything, etc., but nothing specifically about choosing philosophy.

But I was looking through my old blog posts from the summer, and I honestly don't remember most of that stuff. My memory of myself from that time was COMPLETELY different from what my blog lead off. I am not sure if I was just faking who I was there, or I am really bad at remembering things.

But here I am. Asking myself "Why am I studying philosophy?". I would be perfectly happy studying sociology, psychology or political science. Double majoring with two of those. I can better answer the questions "Why do I want to take sociology, psychology or political science?" more than philosophy. So now is time for some intensive thinking.

Reasons why I may possibly be taking philosophy:
- I liked philosophy in history
- I like philosophy over the summer, the course I took online
- I find philosophy interesting
- I got a good grade in my philosophy course
- I like to think a lot
- Philosophy relates to a lot of subjects I like, like education, history and politics
- I am trying to answer the questions of life, and thats what philosophy is
- I want to learn about others' ideas and thoughts

Okay I guess I have a pretty legitimate reason. But I still don't remember when I decided on philosophy. I think at some point I just decided on philosophy and political science and I just was tired of changing my mind, so I just rested there, and that's where I stayed when I applied to university.

I looked through my old philosophy notes recently, and reminded myself of why I like it. I like the debate of the topics. I like looking at things like ethics, epistemology, waves of thought. I don't know. I just get it. Philo/sophy, the love of ideas. That's what I love.

The 7 Sins and Psychological Disorders

Why is a psychological "disorder" is classified as a bad thing?

It's looked upon like some piece of a person that is unfortunate, yet must be destroyed. Sure, quite often psychological disorders impair the person from being able to function in society, or be happy with themself.

But what about the person that doesn't care about that stuff?

Society is built around the christian religion, a lot of our laws are similar to things written in the Old and New testament, other scriptures, and our morals are very close to those of the christian church.
Also, the christian religion has 7 sins:
greed, sloth, pride, gluttony, wrath, lust and envy.

My point is that in this society, we are based a lot off of the christian religion, and in this society, we have psychological disorders. The connection between these two points is that the 7 sins all reflect certain psychological disorders. I just made this connection a few weeks ago.

A christian might try to avoid the 7 sins and so naturally it makes sense that these sins correlate with psychological disorders--- because people with psychological disorders, although are supported more nowadays, have been looked down upon.

This just makes me wonder how credible psychological disorders actually are, if they are just historically based off of the 7 sins, which come from the bible.

Here is specifically how each connect:

Pride can easily be connected to narcissitic or histrionic personality disorder.
Greed is associated  with narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders.
Sloth means being lazy, slow, so technically any disorder associated with slow brain functioning, or being a vegetative state, is associated with the sin of "sloth". So even ADHD would apply here.
Gluttony is obsessive eating, so any over-eating disorder qualifies here.
Wrath is being angry, and excessive anger is a symptom of disorders such as PTSD and PMDD.
Lust can be associated easily with histrionic personality disorder.
Envy is actually one of the big symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.

This just makes me question the credibility of psychological disorders. Why is it considered a disorder? Why if a person is acting schizophrenic, is it considered bad? Why should the person be treated to function within society?

Oh right, structure. We fear chaos.

Every conclusion I ever come to, is the fact that Western culture fears chaos. Even right now with Kim Jong-Un. Whether or not he has the technology, is irrelevant. Some people are just shrugging it off, others are not, but either way, people are afraid of chaos.

Eastern culture doesn't seem to be as afraid.

For all of you who are not history geeks, the term chaos comes from the Greek term kaos/kos/khaos which was from one of their creation myths, that earth was birthed from Kaos.

Throughout Greek history, and maybe a bit in Roman, their myths frequently surrounded the fear of chaos (not really Kaos, but chaos).

Since a lot of who we are is derived from Greek and Roman times, we also now, fear chaos.

At least this is my theory.

Some final questions I am going to leave unanswered by myself:

Should psychological disorders be looked at again, every few years, decades, etc., to see their credibility to the society today? Do psychological disorders outdate themselves? Think of the fact that being gay used to be a psychological disorder of sorts. Should the 7 sins be qualifications in the diagnosis or factors of any psychological disorders?

The difference between theism and religion

Theism is the belief in a god/gods.

Religion is a collection of beliefs, understandings, and thoughts about the universe, and usually has a belief in god or gods.

You cannot prove theism, yet. There is no solid proof that a god or gods exist.

But religion, can be proved. Religion has existed. There have been thousands of religions, meaning groups that practice their collective beliefs.

Just because religion is true, doesn't make theism true. But, that is not what I am talking about in this blog post.

I do not generally like religion. I dislike the modern church. I believe scriptures, bibles, etc., to be fictional stories created a long time ago. Religion has been deeply flawed, historically.  When catholics from Europe came over to Canada during the great migration, and even before then when the UK (Britain) was trying to populate Canada with Catholics, to convince the people the be Catholic. Tjhey were hesitant to leave their native beliefs, but they eventually switched. Why? I believe the main reason to be that the natives and the europeans wanted to trade, and the europeans wouldn't trade with them unless they joined their religion. They send missionaries, built churches, and people slowly converted, so they could trade their furs with the european's silver goods, like needles and knives.

My point here is that the religion just came over and took over. This was one of the more peaceful missions.

Many missions ended in violence, because other areas of the world weren't as tolerant to new religions coming and telling them what to believe, and the new religions coming were insistent on them converting.

All of the blood shed, and immoral behaviour provided throughout history, by assorted religions, leads me to dislike religion.

I'm not hating on a specific religion. All religions are historically flawed.

I would say now, these churches aren't violent, like they used to be. There still are some violent churches, practices and religions. But arguably, less.

I still refuse to commit to a religion.

Now, theism. You do not have to be religious to believe in a god or gods. Religions tend to give out a guideline about what their god is like, omnipresent, omniscient, etc., which makes it easy for the theist to believe, if something seems more realistic.

Believing is weird to me. Like you believe a certain religion's interpretation of who god is, what he is like, what he looks like, etc.

I was just trying to imagine if I believed in god, what he would be like.

This is how religions have split throughout time, I guess. Thinking about what god is actually like, or more specifically, Jesus.

But theism itself, is not really a religion. It is a belief. One can be a theist, and not be religious.

I suppose one could be atheist and have a religion too. For example, lets say an atheist begins attending an anglican church. Sure, the anglican churches' belief is in god, but perhaps this person just enjoys going to church, reading the scriptures, educating them self about the moral aspects of the religion, and not the theistic. This person would then be religious, but atheistic.

But I am not a theist. I am an agnostic atheist. Essentially I am really just an atheistic skeptic. I am almost resolutely atheist. But there is always that little bit of doubt in there, because as I said previously, there is technically no proof there is, or isn't a god. So that's why it's "agnostic atheist".

My point here is just that religion and theism are two different things. Quite often they go hand-in-hand. But not always. I just felt this needed to be distinguished. I've never read anything before about a distinguishment, and I just kind of realized it a few weeks ago, that the two are completely different things.

Just as a final point, I really don't know much about religions, individually. I find them interesting. But generally, when I research and look at religion, I look at it with sociological, historical philosophical and psychological eyes, not really religious eyes, therefore I don't really know much about the actual rituals by religions, I just know more about their philosophies, past histories, effects on society and the individual. Even that I know very slim on.