I used to be heavily involved with religion/atheism debates, used to think about it all the time, used to read regularly trying sharpen my debate skills and expand my knowledge, etc.
Now I couldn't possibly care less. I'm so detached that even when people overtly express their religion to me, I don't even think about it like I used to. I think religion is far less a problem (especially Christianity) than people make it out to be. Most Christians I run across don't really care much about their religion. Islam is very troublesome, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just saying that I nolonger really care about religion or converting people to atheism etc.
Does anyone else relate?
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Sometimes other things in life take priority over the subject. Not giving a shit is normal.
I find religions and endlessly amusing and disgusting at the same time. I'm appalled by the harm that religions do in the world, and I feel pity for the people who need to seek solace in them.
I'm totally unmoved by the messages of religion, but I can't ever be indifferent to their effects. Even if you don't care about religion, it's at work all around you, like termites and viruses. Sooner or later religion and authority will intersect in a way that affects you.
I have never cared about converting people to atheism. I am more passionate now than ever about keeping religious fanatics from gaining political power and teaching creationism in schools.
I care because I care about society and the impact theist nutsacks have on my life and on the lives of others... such as for example members of the LGBT community and for that matter anyone who doesn't believe in their particular version of lunacy.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I have a low tolerance for bullshit. I cringe every time I scroll through my facebook feed a read the barrage of immeasurable stupidity posted by my various friends. Everything from anti-gov't conspiracy theories, to the "Trump is the greatest human being who's ever lived and liberals suck" posts, to "Jesus died for you, like if you agree" posts. But I guess I've recognized the futility of trying to fight it. I look at religion and ignorance as a form of termite damage. Eventually the damage is too far gone and beyond repair. Human civilization is what it is, and it just seems irreparable by this point. If you try to champion reason, or try to help guide people towards a skeptical and scientific worldview, they see you as a snooty liberal. People don't like to be constrained by facts and reason. It spoils all the fun.
Regardless, I just don't have that spark anymore. I've become complacent and tolerant of what others think and believe. This is probably the best way to be.
Yeah I can agree with that. I find it less stressful to not care about certain things at times. Allocate that energy elsewhere.
As I have said multiple times here, religion is in many ways dying out, especially Christianity, 100 years ago, religion had near 100% attendance of surrounding population in their churches on Sunday, etc. Now it is far less and rapidly declining, (in terms of how many centuries religions have been around.)
All the people that say they are xtian but rarely go to church on Sunday, rarely talk about it, and too busy in their lives to put much thought into it, are not the people I am concerned about.
I am more interested in debating the fanatics, like the ones that come to these boards to argue why they are right and atheist are wrong. I am more concerned about the people that stigmatize and mistreat atheist. I am more concerned about the nut jobs holding blatantly false posters at abortion clinics. And I am concerned about religion in politics, and their attempts to try and reverse decades of schooling that emphasized the scientific method over simply agreeing with what someone with an agenda tries to tell you. I demand that the constitution be upheld and that there is a separation from church and state. I want to support fellow atheist that face stigmatization and sometimes out right mortal danger for coming to the obvious logical conclusion, (that there is no god.)
Sea of Madness said: Regardless, I just don't have that spark anymore. I've become complacent and tolerant of what others think and believe. This is probably the best way to be.
I'm very sorry to hear that. May I encourage you to continue to listen to the many voices on this and other similar forums? Perhaps in a year or two you may find encouragement sufficient to engender that spark again.
For myself I've found that confronting fundamentalists of whatever faith is truly rewarding. And it's important. I think it would be awesome if atheists could confront fundamentalists on every issue -- teaching Creationism in schools; mounting monuments to the Ten Commandments in front of courthouses; granting tax free status to churches; and so forth.
What I find most disturbing about Christianity in particular is its dishonesty. Every Christian sect claims that (a) Jesus was the Messiah; (b) Jesus was the Son of God; and that (c) the Bible is the word of God. But every one of those statements is false and can be proved false on the basis of what the Bible itself says. So none of the three cardinal principals on which Christianity rests is actually true. When you confront fundamentalist Christians with biblical evidence to this effect you generally find that they will listen to you, and that eventually they will shut up.
So I hope you don't give up forever. We can win these arguments. Fundamentalists don't actually believe what their scriptures actually say-- they believe in fantasy versions of those scriptures. Once you expose the fantasy they usually begin to realize that something is amiss.
Well, it wasn't a conscious decision to be like this. It just kind of happened nathrally. I slowly stopped giving a shit.
Sounds like you got it a bit out of proportion one way and are now over-reacting, SofM. I just do what I can to keep religion out of politics, the law, science, morality and especially education, but always best to keep things in proportion.
Never let people grind you down and remember to change what you have the power to change and accept what you can't.
When I look at the vast sea of opinions that are represented by the human species at this point, I realize that I'm just an insignificant person with virtually no power to change anything. Like I said before, religious people are religious because it's the easy thing to do. It's easy to just go along with what your local community thinks. People also don't like to be constrained by facts and evidence-based thinking. People have wild imaginations, and they really want their preferred beliefs to be true. It's also heavily based on tradition. When tradition is that deeply rooted in someone's mind, nearly all bets are off at convincing them otherwise. No matter how much logic, no matter how much reason, no matter how much doubt you trying to cast upon them, religion and other forms of delusion are like mind viruses/parasites. They just erode at your critical faculties. Critical thinking is not applied to religious thinking. It is almost, by definition, an omission of applying standard reason. It is an ULTIMATE belief. That's how a lot of people look at it I think.
Regardless, I just don't care anymore. I really just want to improve my life, because my life kind of sucks as it is. I just want to be happy. And I realize that antagonizing 80% of the world is not the way to do it. Much more grief has come to me since I have been open about my atheism than before. And I've kind of run the gauntlet with it.