Geneviev wrote:Neanderthaland wrote:You do NOT speak for all religious people. And that is the definition of faith that most everyone uses.
I know happiness isn't necessarily about feeling good. But the fact remains that you would rather have an anecdote that supports your argument then not. And since truth doesn't matter to you, why not make something up?
Bullshit. That is ALL you do. Every one of your threads is basically, "Okay, I may have given up religion. Maybe. But here are all the reasons why my Church is still great and did nothing wrong!"
Once again you are projecting. The vast majority of "pressured into it" is done by religion, and not the other way around.
None of this changes the fact that tiptoeing around any subject that might potentially hurt someone's feelings if they were wrong about is idiotic. Society simply can't function that way. Children could never be taught anything, because I assure you EVERYTHING you could teach them will be offensive to somebody.
"Can't teach Billy chemistry, because Billy grew up believing in the four elements of witchcraft. And knowing that there are more than four elements would be deeply offensive to him."
"Can't teach Suzy gym. Because Suzy grew up in a household that believes it's immodest for women to exercise."
"Can't teach Jonny music. Because Jonny was taught that music is the tool of the Devil."
"Why not just let them believe what makes them happy? It doesn't harm anybody? Except, of course, for how assumes it does make them happy, robs them of opportunities, and encourages them never to question anything. Aside from those profound harms, it barely harms anyone."
There's a lot of definitions, so I wouldn't say that most people use that one.
The other ones have to do with things like faith in the context of marriage, which just means fidelity. Faith, in a religious context, means what I said. Making it about "proof" entirely defeats the point of faith. And isn't faith.
Truth does matter to me, and I wouldn't want to make anything up. I don't know why I would.
In that case, you probably shouldn't have spent the last six pages arguing against truth.
That is not all I do, and one of the more frustrating things on General is that people want to see things that way constantly. I am interested in religion and tend to make threads about it, but this one isn't about religion.
You were the one who made our conversation - yours and mine - about religion. I didn't bring it up. You did. And you made your hypothetical specifically about a religious person. So yeah, this is kind of on you.
It was inspired by a conversation I had with someone about something completely different. The fact that one of the examples is about religion is caused by it being the best example I had of a case where happiness might be more important than truth, but I thought the pandemic one was also an interesting case. So maybe there would be less misunderstandings if people can move on from those assumptions.
Again, I didn't start with that assumption, you dragged me there.
It's not about offense, because you're right that someone will always be offended. It's just about respecting people's beliefs when it will make them happy and they're not hurting anyone.
Beliefs aren't entitled to respect. People are. And it's respectable to treat them like adults, and not coddle them.
