Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?

AliceBastable

Traveltext, that person reinforces why religion is a nasty thing in the wrong hands. I know plenty of reasonable religious people, but the vicious nutjobs give them all a bad name.

april_bc, I sometimes tell people I'm sending them positive thoughts. It's just a non-religious statement of support to make them feel somebody cares what happens to them. I'm not crazy about people praying for me, but I see a huge difference between something like "you're in my prayers" if I'm having a major medical issue, and a judgemental "I'm praying for you" from someone who disapproves of me.

Elderberry

illimae: A chocolate cross?! It could have at least be semi-sweet. Eating a holy Christian symbol just seems weird. I guess they want to jump on the chocolate egg and bunny train. Well, that one has nothing to do with Christianity. Not sure about the chocolate but one of the Pagan stories says that the Goddess found a tiny bird freezing in the snow. She turned it into a hare so it could make a burrow and survive the winter. In the Spring, the hare returned and laid coloured eggs at her feet. I like that story better, not that I believe it. I am an atheist as far as Pagan religions go as well. But at least they tend to be life affirming, nature loving and excepting of most things.

When I was first diagnosed my dentist said he would mention me to Allah, another friend I am sure wore out her rosary praying to St. Peregrine (I think that is his name), other people offered to send out positive thoughts. None of them have ever tried to stuff their beliefs down my throat. I accept that they do these things as an act of kindness or love. But if a member of the clergy ever came to my bedside to offer his/her prayers I would say "Sod off!"

AliceB: Can I say "Amen" without it sounding religious. Okay, I'll say "Right on, sister"

Elderberry

To All: Dammit - I meant to type "accepting" --- I hate when I type the wrong word when I know better. Was I an English teacher in a previous life? No, 'cause I don't believe in reincarnation either!!

Wren44

I knew a recovering Catholic who was in the hospital at death's door. Against his wishes someone called a priest in to do last rites. He realized what was happening and was furious! To the point that he sat up in bed and screamed at the priest. He got well and is still around years later.

Miriandra

Good for him! I also find it disgusting when Mormons baptize people after death. How can a dead person even have a chance to give consent, much less convert?

Trishyla

I'm totally with you on that, Miriandra. How disrespectful can you be? I've considered suing them or getting an injunction to stop them from baptizing ANY of my ancestors in to their creepy cult.

Spookiesmom

I seem to remember something about them baptizing Jewish people too after death.

illimae

Truth! (From the HBO show True Detective)

CFKelly

My aunt asked me if I thought god saved me from the cancer. I replied, if god had anything to do with it, he should have shown up a bit sooner and prevented it in the first place. Then I sat there enjoying the the awkward silence that over took the room.

AliceBastable

CFKelly

You said what so many of us have thought!

If any Mormon tries to convert/baptize me after death, I WILL haunt the crap out of them.

My grandmother was in a catholic hospital in the 1940s or early 1950s. When a nun came in and started praying in Latin, Grandma told her "Stop that gibberish!" I loved my Grandma.

Miriandra

Ha! Great stories! xD

magiclight

April is National Poetry Month. Surrounded by news of constant mass killings in America, I find Danna Faulds and other poets work provide some grounding to my grief.

HikingLady

Hello, fellow analytical thinkers! I haven't dropped in for awhile, so I just now caught up and read the past month or two of posts on this thread. I love the humor and the anecdotes and observations. This is my like-minded tribe, for sure!

My Very Catholic friend is being treated for gastric cancer, and she tells me about how everyone in her extended family, and all her Catholic friends are praying for her. I say, "Oh, how comforting for you," which is about the farthest I can go, and matches what she keeps saying, which is that she feels very buoyed up by that.

As I look around at the horrific gun violence in our country, the suffering and loss of lives to Covid, and innumerable other tragedies worldwide, I have less and less tolerance for those platitudes about how "God was looking out for me," or "Everything happens for a reason." It seems so completely brainless to imagine that there's a God who chooses to cure one person's cancer and make a vaccine available to some people, but who decides that my friend's healthy daughter can simply die in her sleep at age 32. (not Covid, probably heart--the ME is investigating the cause of death)

I give science and medicine the credit for good disease outcomes and treatments, and successful surgeries and vaccines. If there were actually a god, a puppeteer in the sky who's infinitely good, he/she would not, by definition, create a bunch of arbitrary suffering, and go around picking and choosing whose prayers to answer.

Thanks for all the logic and humor. A chocolate cross is one of the weirdest thing I've ever seen, but bunnies that lay chocolate eggs in honor of The Resurrection is already pretty hilarious....

Spookiesmom

Give me a Cadbury cream egg over church any day.

magiclight

Posted this before, but continues to describe me and maybe other Cadbury lovers

AliceBastable

Ooh, that's me! I worship Our Lady of the Lemon Filled Doughnut.

Spookiesmom

This is from Cadbury too. Hard to find, lives up to the name. But better than American chocolate.

magiclight

Spookie: had to look up Cadbury Flake. It is available on line from you know who, but not quite ready for a 12 or 24 pack.

MicheleH57

I am a very liberal Jew who was born Catholic but "made my way home." My Jewish beliefs do NOT include a god who intercedes in much of anything in this day. But the god I believe in gifted humans with the ability to learn and care and improve and cure. So, essentially, SCIENCE.

However we gained those abilities, we have them and we're supposed to use them! To heal and alleviate suffering and for good.

If and when someone offers to pray for me, I do say "thanks" and recognize it's usually their way of saying "I'm with you!"

When I meet up with someone who is going through trials, I'll usually say "I'm with you," or "Thinking of you" or "Sending you healing energy."

I actually often think that the people for whom those thoughts and supplications apply and to whom they should be "sent" are the medical personnel caring for all of us, that they might be insightful and wise, be professionally using the latest and best treatments, and come to us at every meeting and encounter with open hearts and warmth.

magiclight

Interesting points michele...

My reply when people tell me how they feel blessed, I simply respond, I feel privileged. Big difference. No deity needed.

KIDI919

I believe there is something better waiting on the "other side". Do I believe there is "something" out there that looks after us? NO. If so that "being" would in my book be an asshole. To look on and see suffering without interceding.... well thats not someone i care to meet.

That said I have experienced (as have other people) haunting's if that's what u want to call them. I believe we are energy that keeps being recycled.

If someone says they will pray for me I just say thank you.

AliceBastable

KIDI919

I also think there's some form of life recycling based on a handful of inexplicable incidents, but I don't think it has a thing to do with any religion or spiritual persuasion. To me, it's just another part of nature that hasn't been completely investigated - and I kind of like it that way.

KIDI919

AliceB, No I don't think it has anything to do with religion either. I think of it as the cycle we see in nature.

AliceBastable

Maybe it's something that happens as we become mulch. 🤪

KIDI919

LOL AliceB. I thought I might want to come back as a cat but with my luck it would be an alley cat.

magiclight

Kid, alley cats can have fun

DivineMrsM

So I came across the following memes on Facebook. I haven’t verified that what they claim is one hundred percent factual, but the main idea that the Bible was heavily edited and has questionable interpretation is certainly one that I have read about. I’d be interested in hearing anyone’s comments.

Spookiesmom

👍👍

Traveltext

The Bible stories are basically fictional and based on hyperbolic hearsay transcribed into texts written hundreds of years previously.

Basically, they are propaganda, and were (still are) used by church hierarchy to preach their version of christianity.

KIDI919

Yep and written by men. Generally to control women. Propaganda at it's finest.

Magiclight: alley cats do have fun!!