A Strange History of Faith and Religion

[AskWazzup]

Sounds more like Mormons. Although, Jehovas Witness also usually wear button shirts and ties, at least.

Ha! Are there more of these groups that i'm not aware of? I know there have been a good increase in some buddhist like people walking in packs with percussion instruments and a few drapes for clothes. For some reason there are none of them left when it gets cold .

 

[zegh8578]

Sounds more like Mormons. Although, Jehovas Witness also usually wear button shirts and ties, at least.

Ha! Are there more of these groups that i'm not aware of? I know there have been a good increase in some buddhist like people walking in packs with percussion instruments and a few drapes for clothes. For some reason there are none of them left when it gets cold .

Those are Hare Krishna cultists, you can mass-kill them in GTA (the first game), don't do it in reality tho! They're super peaceful! Stereotypically they hang out in airports, and bother people with their drumming, but I never saw them in my life.
And you weren't aware of Mormons?

Jehova's Witnesses are best known for being door-knockers, they go to people's homes and ask to come inside, sit down, and tell you all about their religion, something that earned them a bit of a "pushy" reputation, but it's people own damn fault for not just saying "no, I'm sorry" and closing the door

They also like to "buy affection" through good deeds, which also might come off as pushy. They are supposedly not allowed to intermingle with non-believers, unless they try to convert them, which makes relationships w non-believers a bit strained. My dad had Witness-friends who would come over and grant us food-gifts, which was awkward enough since it made us feel like charity-cases, which we most certainly were not, but it also felt like bribery. Eventually they stopped, and also stopped contacting altogether.

 

[AskWazzup]

Those are Hare Krishna cultists, you can mass-kill them in GTA (the first game), don't do it in reality tho! They're super peaceful! Stereotypically they hang out in airports, and bother people with their drumming, but I never saw them in my life.

They were walking all over the place here, but only during summer time. Cold tends to clean the streets from everything that is pesky.

And you weren't aware of Mormons?

I thought they were those dudes who ride in horse carts or whatever.

Jehova's Witnesses are best known for being door-knockers, they go to people's homes and ask to come inside, sit down, and tell you all about their religion, something that earned them a bit of a "pushy" reputation, but it's people own damn fault for not just saying "no, I'm sorry" and closing the door.

Then they are not the only ones, i had them (it seems now), some other christian cultists and a few orthodox church folk knock on my door at various stages of my life (usually for money, or some money making scheme). These days i mostly don't open the door unless it's someone i know, or a mailman/woman - everybody else can go to hell.

They also like to "buy affection" through good deeds, which also might come off as pushy. They are supposedly not allowed to intermingle with non-believers, unless they try to convert them, which makes relationships w non-believers a bit strained. My dad had Witness-friends who would come over and grant us food-gifts, which was awkward enough since it made us feel like charity-cases, which we most certainly were not, but it also felt like bribery. Eventually they stopped, and also stopped contacting altogether.

I would not touch any food from a stranger, or better yet a cultist...

 

[Hassknecht]

Sounds more like Mormons. Although, Jehovas Witness also usually wear button shirts and ties, at least.

Ha! Are there more of these groups that i'm not aware of? I know there have been a good increase in some buddhist like people walking in packs with percussion instruments and a few drapes for clothes. For some reason there are none of them left when it gets cold .

Yeah, mormons and Jehovas Witnesses are the main missionary "sects" out there, at least when it comes to going from door to door and chatting up people on the street.
And mormons usually wear white shirts and very often have backpacks, or that's what the cliché says, at least.

Did they wear badges?

 

[AskWazzup]

Did they wear badges?

Can't recall.

 

[Crni Vuk]

If you want to really know something about those religions, just look how they threat people that decided to leave those cults. I understand that this is not the practise in ALL of their churches, but still, it doesn't seem to be very easy to get out of it. Not easy like saying, yoh, I am no catholic anymore. Throwing dead animals at your door, calling you in the midle of night, cutting you off from your friends, family etc telling them that you're a sinner and when someone talks with you they will burn in hell etc. Doesn't sound that friendly to me. I would rather go to one of those free christian churches that even accept and welcome gays WITHOUT telling them that their behaviour is a sin. I once meet such a person in a hospital. He was awesome, he even prayed at my bed when I had serious depressions.

 

[valcik]

I thought they were those dudes who ride in horse carts or whatever.

That must be Amish dudes, persisting on full-time Movember alert and refusing modern technologies.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

Thanks for the commentary and some of your own experiences everyone!

I'm...quite surprised no one found what I wrote as sort of shocking. I mean I know lots of people have "superficial" meetings with various religions, but don't have any knowledge of how they work "behind closed doors" or their specific principles and I know I've found out a lot about those and included them even in the context of history/holy books. Maybe people (or at least those here) are more knowledgeable than I expected?

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

 

[zegh8578]

I'm...quite surprised no one found what I wrote as sort of shocking.

What do you mean by shocking?
Even the most mundane beliefs are pretty "bat shit" if you compare them to a plainly atheistic world view.
"Alternativism" is widespread in the educated west, yet it includes notions of pretty stones containing "good energy" versus "evil energy" and so on.
Healing rubble.
Water that has good intentions, water with a sense of moral. Nothing surprises me, really. Consider Christianity is the worlds biggest religion, and if we count all Abrahamic religions we're up to over half the entire world population. Half the population of the world believe that there's another dimension of reality up in the sky, and whenever it's pointed out that there's only clouds there, there's only further alternate dimensions added "no, no, it's beyond that." where exactly? "Beyond."

The other half, Dharmic religions, with men who sit beneath trees for the duration of their lives, contemplating stuff - or blue-skinned people with 8 arms.

Even if they are moderate believers, there is no surprise in any of it.

Now, you bring up a very interesting point in the "behind closed doors"
As an atheist myself, I have a hard time truly emphatizing with religious people. Most of it, I can understand, but there has to be different levels of doubt out there, coupled with different degrees of faith.
It is common knowledge that most educated Christian people don't really believe Jesus made fish rain down from the sky, but there's no exact boundary anywhere, it's up to every believer - and varies from religion to religion.

I know one Muslim who cried during Ramadan - out of the frustration of fasting
I know another Muslim who ate pork and got tattoos (this would be one of the moderate Muslims that hard-line islamophobes refuse to acknowledge even exist)

There is a "gray scale" from believing everything - to believing nothing, and as a human, you can't really be surprised to encounter people anywhere on that scale.

 

[Walpknut]

Well I gre up catholic and did 3 of the sacraments before turning atheist. Here in Colombia we don'thave that much immigration from different cultures, and while there is a mosque in here, and even a Scientology temple too (I am serious) it's pretty rare to meet someone who is of any religion other than Catholic, it's to the point that some people will even try to argue with you that you are Catholic just for being Colombian.

We do have some Neo Nazis in here too, even tho Hitler would've probably have us gassed if he could with us being such a mixed breed of everything from Spanish and indigenous people to even Asian.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Religion is the opium of the masses

 

[zegh8578]

Religion is the opium of the masses

A communist!!!

 

[Crni Vuk]

actually, to be honest, I am very fascinated by communisn and I think it is a great idea. It's just that it is build on an ideal that can't work in the real world, as it completely ignores human nature. And any ideology that does that is boud to fail, in many cruel ways. As simple as that.

 

[zegh8578]

actually, to be honest, I am very fascinated by communisn and I think it is a great idea. It's just that it is build on an ideal that can't work in the real world, as it completely ignores human nature. And any ideology that does that is boud to fail, in many cruel ways. As simple as that.

Just to balance it out, and you probably know this allready, but capitalism - catering directly to the most untameable aspects of human nature, is also bound to fail.
Unless the ideal is to want and expect tremendous inequality "cus hey - !"
The difference is that it fails in another way - it fails US the people.
Communism failed itself, by trying to headbutt against human nature, to strive for a fantasy ideal.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Well of course, extremism in which way ever has to be avoided.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

Okay so it's been a week since I posted my huge story.

First let me thank anyone who took lots of time to read it whether you replied or not. It took me a huge amount of time to write and wasn't "easy" to do either. You have done me a favor by validating that it was written.

Now if you don't mind...I have some questions.

#1: Does this story sound too hard to believe? I mean meet a lot of people who statistically are extremely rare (like my one friend who is a Waldensian or the caucasian convert to Hinduism) and it almost sounds to me like I made it up. That's also not including the things I do/talk with them.

#2: Is the story too "unfortunate"? I realize that us here at NMA tend to be older and a lot more worldly so I know you (the reader) can bare it, but I'm not sure a normal person could.

#3: Do I (the writer and person of perspective) come across as totally naive and blundering through everything or knowledgeable and legitimately trying to help? I'll admit I'm a lot more strongly believing the former and I wouldn't feel bad if you said it was so.

I ask these questions, because half the reason I wrote this was to finally be able to explain to people who ask (close family) exactly what my stance is on religious topics. It's not simply that since they don't know that they're curious...everyone points out how I choose to live that I must clearly place a large price on faith yet it's suspicious I won't talk about it. It doesn't bother me, but over the years the number of people who've asked is quite large by now.

I'm sort of thinking it might be best not to tell them since I know (and you can see form my story) that people are often completely irrational and prone to easily gaining negative opinions (not of me, but of the various faiths represented by those I meet).

Also if you could feel free to add anything else you might think would help including your own questions.

Very Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Moosick]

actually, to be honest, I am very fascinated by communisn and I think it is a great idea. It's just that it is build on an ideal that can't work in the real world, as it completely ignores human nature. And any ideology that does that is boud to fail, in many cruel ways. As simple as that.

This is why Marx - to the best of my knowledge - never actually laid out plans for HOW to create and maintain a revolution. That, combined with his misinterpreted DOTP line gives you a bunch of fascists to play with it.

Though tbh I think we really need to find out what human nature is before we throw off an idea (regardless of the ideology one follows), as social conditioning is a whole other level and even then, even folks like Darwin acknowledged that collaboration in humans is a long-running thing that may be rooted in instinct rather than immediate rationality. But then again Marx also acknowledged the selfishness (in extremes) of some humans.

Plus Nietzsche warned us extensively about what happens if collective thought gets too dogmatic.

You puny humans don't even have warp drive yet.

 

[Akratus]

I pray for the safety of all good people who come to nma, even gentiles.
But we can't expect god to do all the work.