lindalove

I am just curious as to why people get so upset at the mere mention of religion? Some people, all they have to do is see a religious topic, or a religious phrase and they automatically put their claws out and shut out what people say. I myself have never been that offended by religion (even when I went through a slight agnostic phase) so much that I would get angry if someone merely mentioned it, but I was just curious as to why something that can bring so many together, can also be so divisive as well? Is there any way to discuss/mention religion or religious topics without it causing people to be on the defensive, or getting upset about it?

Lady Sage

I have to be quick because I am about to go to work, so in a nut shell....
IMO, people have always been taught their religion is the only way! The only right way! All others are going to the bad place. I find this to be funny since nearly every religion I have encountered has preached or taught to be accepting and non judgemental and to pretty much "love thy neighbor". Alas, it has been my findings that the vast majority of followers do not live the words of their chosen path anyway.
Still other people are offended or put off when the topic comes up because they are used to being talked down to about their religion or judged by it.
Sorry I didnt have time to be more specific and may have left questions but I have to run.
Be Well. (No matter what you believe)

pan6467

Speaking for myself alone, everyone has an inherent spirituality in them. I think this is why you can see people drawn to certain beliefs, yet have no reasoning besides "I relate to this". But that is rare most people follow their parents or choose something that is opposite their parents be it in a conscious or subconcious way.

Since I have known of no one that has risen from the dead, no one can honestly say what happens when we die. Most people's religion gives them a pretty picture of what life after death is but those that believe differently face an uglier fate in death. They of course do this for 2 reasons, to keep the fold in line (i.e. control them.... "if you do not do as we interpret the Bible/Koran/Torah etc. to say, then you are not a true believer and God shall punish you") and to give the people unhappy in their lives now a reason to make it through life.

Based on that, no one wants to be told that the greatness and better life they have coming in death (based solely on belief and not actions mind you) is wrong. They may have to question their beliefs and whole life, and extremely few want to do that.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Ustwo

I could tell you but I'd have to cut your head off.

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Psycho Dad

The fans of Jesus are going to let you know how offended they are in 5... 4... 3...

I know of a board where religious and political topics have been banned. The boards stated those topics were too hard to moderate (the board needs new mods IMHO).

Factor in the fact that we tend to be moving towards a society where people believe they have the right to not be offended and this isn't going to get any better. How is there going to be discussion where we can learn to understand the differences in our opinions when we shut the doors of communication for fear of offending someone?

oops... Phone. brb.

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ngdawg

I agree for the most part. No one wants to relate to roadkill-humans have such tremendous egos that they just 'know' they will live forever in some form and base their entire belief system on this premise.
I also think that no one wants to be told that what they believe is false. It attacks their core. How can what they're thinking to be true not be? Question such stories as turning to a pillar of salt, animals going two by two into an ark with 7 people (thereby starting the earth's life over again!?!), and a man rising from the dead and risk wrath. Why?
I also agree that by putting your reasons, excuses and exceptions for life's behaviors on the premise of a book takes away responsibility for failings, but it also doesn't give any credit for successes. "Thank God" when things go well?
When's the last time someone succeeded in a quest strictly by tithing and saying some prayer without doing a damned thing otherwise? (maybe I'll try that-just sit here, ask for something and wait....)
I don't follow my parents at all-dad was raised Catholic, mom, Jewish. I tried several churches and by 15 or so found them to be hypocritical with stories so full of holes, I could drive my car through them. The final straw was in going to the spouse's church(he'd insisted I go during Easter service, much to my protesting) and the pastor declared that anyone not believing in Christ would burn in hell.
That to me was extremely offensive.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

Daniel_

I think that it comes down to the fact that the harder it is to prove your point by rational argument, the more agressively you present your case.

Or something.

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And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
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Comes willowing across the sand;
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fresnelly

One's religion is often at the core of one's identity. It's hard not to be defensive when discussing your and your family's place in the universe. It's the same for politics, race, sexuality and parenting.

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ratbastid

Seriously. They need a schooling from the Mods of TFP.

There's nothing more central to the identity than religion. It's not just online--it's fair to say that the majority of wars in human history (I'm looking... probably not all wars, but most) are based on religious differences. Many religions have "I'm right you're wrong" built into them--not, interestingly, as a core tenet, but as an aspect of common practice. Usually there are core tenets about tolerence and love, but what gets practiced is intolerence and hate. I think that's mostly what people react to.

absorbentishe

Just like politics, every one has an opinion, and their's is the only one that is right. If you say something to them that is out of what they believe, then you are out of line.

For too many people, they can't seperate themselves from what others "should" believe as well. We aren't a society of tolerence as we are to believe. You can talk about what you belive in, but don't tell me what I should, and that is the problem.

I love to hear what others have to say, and I never take it as being preached to, or trying to sway me. If you think someone is preaching to you, then you become offended.

pan6467

I have to disagree here. I think the "religious war" is far more used now than ever before. I say used because to those who start the wars, fund the wars and profit from the wars, do so for their own gains, religion to them is an excuse to get the troops behind them.

Take the crusades for instance, it wasn't about Christianity vs. Islam.... it was about the Ottoman empire trying to move into Europe. Since Europe and her leaders were pretty much controlled by the Vatican and Catholic church, The church made it a "holy war". And some scholars would say (and there is a great argument, that the whole crusades was brought about by the Ottoman's solely to reunite the Roman empire.)

But then you look at Napolean, Rome, The American Revolution, the 100 Years War, Louis the 14th's battles, Franco-Prussian War, French and Indian war, and so on, these wars were all about power from 1 nation to another. Religion did not have much to do with it.

Much like today, the wars over in the Middle East are not about religion, they are all about power and greed. Once we can establish the truth about why we are there, what powers truly are wanting war and the true reasons and how religion truly has nothing to do with it but to juice up the foot soldiers.... then we may very well be on a true path to peace and ending the war.

Sorry I digress, it's the old history major in me..... ignore the man behind the curtain..... he's just a big ol' bag of hot air.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

snowy

I don't believe I'm right. I think some are misguided when all they see in Christianity (my faith) is a god of vengeance, fire, and brimstone when they should be seeing a faith composed of love--all kinds of love.

I think the newly-elected Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, got it right when she said, "[I pray] That we remember the centrality of our mission is to love each other. That means caring for our neighbors. And it does not mean bickering about fine points of doctrine."

For me, that expands beyond Christianity, so I don't mind a good religious debate. I don't find it offensive. I'm nearly impossible to offend when it comes to religion. The only thing that bothers me is a refusal to believe that there is an external force at work in the universe, but I've been arguing that point with my father for so long that it rarely bothers me any more.

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Lady Sage

Please take the following as the joke that it is between my christian mother and myself... It is not meant to offend anyone in ANY WAY.

You are SOOO right Psycho Dad! My mother takes every possible chance to let her pagan daughter know just how far from grace I have fallen in her opinion. To which I respond.... "This is coming from someone who thinks a woman got knocked up by a ghost???"

I dont believe any one religion is right in any way. As long as the person lives by their own beliefs instead of claiming to but doing the opposite is alright in my book. I will not attack another persons religion unless they first spit on mine... then its on and I will go back and forth for hours... days... months... I know, i've seen me do it.

Again, the above was in no way meant to offend ANYONE nor was it a hit on ANYONES beliefs or spiritual path.

Psycho Dad

At work I usually take my breaks (when I can manage to get them) with a Christian that hates homosexuals and a Muslim that hates jews and a few people that enjoy our conversations. At no point does anyone get offended at one another, yet our conversations usually start from something that one of us reads in the paper that maybe doesn't offend us, but at least shocks or angers us.

However I know that at some point we are all going to be in the office over someone taking offense at our views on how religion either should or shouldn't be a basis on how certain matters in life should be. Were the whole world able to get along as my break partners and myself I think we could focus on more important issues than someone getting in a tizzy over where another rates their god of choice.

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Charlatan

The only time I get uncomfortable with talk of religion is when it comes to proselytizing. I find it completly and utterly rude.

That said, I love to hear about and to debate religion. Just don't overtly try to convince me that your way is best.

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Cynthetiq

from a recent journal entry...

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kurty[B]

I don't particularly enjoy talking about religion, because the religion I was raised with when you talked about God or Jesus, or religious topics it always seemed to be to "spread the gospel". Now that I no longer follow that religion, or even remotely agree to it's principals I do avoid religious speak.

Why? I guess I feel when religion is being discussed I immediately go on the defensive feeling that other people are trying to push their beliefs on me. It kind of depends how the approach into such a religious conversation goes. "I believe this, so I live like this" I'm fine with that, but "Jesus did this so we could live like this"; I've already started ignoring you at that point.

nikkiana

I suppose I really could write volumes in responce to this.... but I think sometimes some people tend to react defensively to religious topics because of previous experiences... If you've had bad experiences with people who hold particular beliefs, it's not surprising that some people get defensive at the mere mention that you believe a certain thing. I also think sometimes word choices end up making people more or less defensive...

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nikkiana

dd3953

((mind you, i do not mean all religious people, the following has just been my experience.))

i think that so many people have been taught that they should be ready to die for their beliefs, they have also been taught that everyone else is wrong, & that they should spread their beliefs whenever they can. so when the topic comes up everyone is ready for a fight, to prove themselves & ignore everyone else. so instead of having a conversation, you have a bunch of people trying to change some one's belief.
& then you have the people that are way to PC & instead of finding a way to share their beliefs without apologizing for every word they say.
it would easily bring people together, but only if they believed the same thing.

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Ch'i

Short answer:
Blindly believing in something leaves it a vulnerable subject. I think discussing it can sometimes bring out defensiveness because of this. It also usually has a deep meaning in their life, so asking about it can seem like an invasion of privacy to some.

ratbastid

No worries. I was hoping a history major would come along and clarify things for me.

Here's the point I was trying to make: I don't think it's denyable that there is a major undercurrent of cultural friction in world history. Cultures have met on the battlefield far more often than in the trading tent. And no force more defines a culture than its religion.

Sultana

I think it has a lot to do with the tendency for most religions to proselytize. I know with my background (Southern Conservative Baptist--because Southern Baptist wasn't fundamental enough for my family, no lie), they want you to proselytize with ever breath you take. That, coupled with the attitude that everyone who doesn't think like you is going to suffer in a pit of hellfire for all eternity, does not encourage an atmosphere of rational discussion and respect for differences.

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At night, the ice weasels come." -

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thespian86

Simply put?

It is easy to invest in. It is easy to question.

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The_Jazz

For what it's worth, I'm guilty of what you're talking about, lindalove. It happens here and in the real world, but I actually do know why.

I grew up in about as close to the middle of the Bible Belt as you can get, East Tennessee. Clearly there are lots of conservative Christians all over the country, but East TN is one of those odd places where the most vocal conservatives have been in power so long that they've taken to sniping at each other in order to garner support. It's also home to the snake-handling Pentacostals, just to give you a little flavor.

I grew up getting offers of salvation at the grocery store, the barber shop, soccer practice and department stores (that I recall off the top of my head). I went to a private high school with a required religious studies class, and that as another turnoff. Basically, from about ages 12 to 18 I was beaten over the head with conservative Protestantism of various flavors. If you're not of the faith (whatever that faith happens to be), it can be quite deterent to embracing any religion at all when you're under a constant barrage of evangisiation.

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hrandani

I was going to say that it's an irrational topic and it's impossible for people to be objective about it because if they considered religion objectively they would not participate.

Then I realized that's inflammatory. So I'll go with what Daniel said.

lindalove

Richard Dawkins has some interesting things to say about the topic with his series "The Root of All Evil".

Part 1: http://youtube.com/w/Richard-Dawkins...search=dawkins

Part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...02357039658996
Part 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...99165547892433

They're about 45 minutes each and have a lot of great arguments. The issue comes down to the fact that Dawkins is such annoying that it's hard to separate the emotional response from the logic.

Ustwo

I think there are two types of arguments which can head to violence easily.

One is where someone is backed into a corner for what they believe and can not defend it.

The other is where someone is very vocal about their option, accepts no others as even possibly valid, and they are (in the eyes of the one about to throw the punch) just completely WRONG.

Religion gets to have both. You can beat down just about any religion with the logic stick, and you can trigger the 'WRONG' emotion as well in people who really do believe.

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Ch'i

Well said, and you did it without heads flying <applause>.

Willravel

I don't find it offensive. A lot of my best jokes are religous.

If you want to get worked up over something like religon, then you better know your stuff. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with someone who fancied himself a christian fundamentalist. The problem was that his knownedge of the bible was limited. Something he claimed to devote his life to was in actuality simply a soap box from whitch to shout his idocy. What did I do? I dressed him down.

Please, please please people: if you want to devote your life to something, then devote your life to it. Don't do it half assed, then start spewing your misunderstanding on people who have better things to do than listed to a half cocked maniac. If you really devote your life to it, you'll always have my respect. THOSE are the people I will be sensitive for so far as religon. I'm willing to adjust my behavior for someone I respect.

high_jinx

i think its a combination of things to varying degrees with different people.

for most people, i think its a slippery slope thing. if they're talking w/ someone about religion and they happen to make a valid and thoughtful point about their religion that happens to shed some doubt upon that faith, it can start to completely unravel their spiritual and world value sets along with their faith and sense of security about the afterlife, followed by their basic conviction of "everything happens for a reason". I think there are subconcious defenses we have in place to keep us comfortable and getting offended is an obvious instinctual line of defense to combat that. The most religious people are also the most uncomfortable with anything that has to do with the unknown.

For me personally, i steer clear of that kind of talk unless i know the person for a different reason. most people i encounter have such strong convictions about their faith and beliefs that they start talking AT me instead of WITH me. i can see in their eyes that they're thinking of the next point they're going to try to make instead of actually listening to what im trying to say after i've just taken in a monologue from them.

having said all that, i think this forum offers more open minded people and less zealots. thats why a lot of people on this thread are problem free when it comes to discussion.

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roachboy

one of my oldest and dearest friends is a fundamentalist protestant preacher. we have argued about religion since we were both in high school---he believes and i do not--the conversations are often strange, but they can happen because both of us understand that regardless of what is said, we function on the basis of a deep love and respect for each other, so even conversations than end up with something on the order of "you think that? that is stupid..." can happen.

and that kind of conclusion can run in both directions.

i am not sure if this is generalizable, but i think that the problem with casual conversations with folk you dont really know about religion can be problematic because it is not obvious that there is a basis of respect or affection behind it, or a relationship that lets both partners in a conversation situate it. if that is the case, people can think that by questioning their convictions you are questioning them as people.

of course, all bets are off when i encounter an evangelical who wants to convert me. depending on the aggressiveness of the evangelical, of course. when i was younger, i would take some pleasure in the debates: now i assume they are a waste of time, but will do it if the evangelical will not stop when i ask him or her to stop. i think it follows from the above, but from my side: that i assume there is a lack of respect behind the attempts to press me when i ask that the evangelical not press me, that he or she find someone who might possibly be sympathetic to them instead of wasting their effort on me.

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it make you sick.

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Val_1

I talk about religion quite often. It's one of my favorite subjects. And, yes, there are quite a few people who aren't will to even broach the subject. Many people seem to be brought up to believe that religion is something you just don't question, i.e., you don't talk about it or discuss it. When a thoughtful religious discussion is brought up, they become noticeabley nervous, even if the conversation is calm and well balanced.

Perhaps they are expecting proselytizing, perhaps they just don't have the tools needed to discuss religion. It's kind of funny, but (and I'm generalyzing here) it appears to me that the people that go to church every Sunday are the ones that know the least about religion and are least able to discuss it rationally.

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flstf

The difficulty in discussing religion especially with a believer is that there seems to be more faith involved than logic. You might hear something like "I don't know exactly why I believe but the holy spirit entered my body and I am convinced I'm right". There is not much to debate unless you want to say that they are fooling themselves which can be taken as a personal attack.

I try to give believers the benefit of the doubt that they are genuinely concerned with my well being. After all some are convinced that if you do not believe as they do that you will be damned to suffer for all eternity in hell. You know, "Oh Ye of little faith", and I have little faith that any one religion has all the answers but they may contain a grain of truth as a group.

MINCKEN

In order for a religious conversation to take place without the immediate termination of the others life a common ground must be established. So as you have guessed we will go on to the establishment of the one and only CARGO CULT! Used to illustrate a reason for the establishment of a religion. Fathom this.......the cast of characters consists of native south sea islanders, US Navy cargo ships, WWII, US citizens taking advantage of those illiterate natives, a young Richard Nixon, terminal boredom and a keen eye for scale model construction.

In short. The world is at war (whats new?). The US needs supplies for the coming Asian invasion. War Lords order Navy cargo ships to temporarily stash their loads on islands. Easy to pay natives Spam and beans to unload ships. Navy unloads and reloads ships for a year or more. In true human form, natives forget how to fish and pick berries, develop taste for Spam and beans. Navy leaves, never to return. Natives need Navy chow. Navy disappeared because of "spiritual" problems. Natives build scale model Victory ship from sticks. Natives worship god's image hoping for a return from the dead. The natives keep singing to ship god.....

This pisses off virtually any member of any religion. (except frisbeterians). You see while discussing the beginning of Cargo, L Ron Hubbard, Santeria or elf worship, the religious soon see the "great flood" was merely the breaching of what would become the Straights of Gibraltar. Soon they identify the root of one religion's 1/4 moon logo as signifying its beginning on a small wooden outdoor closet on a small farm in Tennessee that had the 1/4 moon cut into it's door to relieve the strong smell. The beginning of all of the other logos are rooted in similar circumstances.

Why does the mere mention of religion bring about a wild outbreak of violence? Well everyone is afraid that a careful examination of their FAITH will reveal a similarity to a cargo ship that had Richard Nixon as second officer.......Thank the Durra Mater!

Seaver

History major here, and that statement is again completely incorrect. War between cultures are rare, trading is the norm. War would occur as a result of power shifts in both internal and international realms. These took generations to hundreds of years to occur until just this century. Trading, on the other hand, would occur regardless of war or peace.

And to state that it's THE major driving force in defining a culture is at best a far stretch. That assumes that there is no culture that predates the arrival of said religion. Jesus never taught sexism, but the culture of those who adopted the teachings brought it into the scriptures.

The Jewish scriptures are full of war, pillaging, and flat out slaughter of their enemies. Yet their culture is generally seen as peaceful.

The old Danes litterally believed that the only way into heaven was to die in battle, yet they traded more than pillaged (though are only remembered for the latter).

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Charlatan

Seaver

There are few monuments to trade but many war... War causes great upheaval and trade is the ordinary.

Is it any wonder we tend to point to war?

Trade needs better PR.

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roachboy

since there is a history debate that runs alongside the question of wy conversations about religion can become socially toxic, i figure it's other than a threadjack to run with it a little.

a sociology of religion would start from the assumption that a religion is basically a displacement of the social order onto that of the cosmos, onto history, etc. so understanding something of collective history as it is routed through patterns of spirituality can be a fascinating entrance point into the complexity of social practices, the types of conflict that arise within these patterns of social practice and the attempts at resolving these conflicts.
similarly, the history written into these practices is usually taken as the backwriting of the particular social logics that obtained at the point of the origin of the texts into the distant past. of course, seeing religion in this way relativizes it, and so causes trouble for believers, who prefer to relativize all traditions except their own. call it a byproduct of belief.

if you play this game, you quickly find yourself more or less forced to go further and wonder about the notion of religion itself, whether it is entirely a western construct that reconfigures a huge range of modes of thinking and interacting with dimensions that exceed the physical in the image of christianity, with its particular modes of separating types of activity, etc.--and with particular assumptions concerning belief, what it means, what is entailed by it. you could also say that this category "religion" is a particularly protestant construction in its assumptions concerning the priority of individual belief over collective practices---this shift does not really describe modes of interaction with "god" in catholicism even (in which individual belief and collective pratice are more symmterical--it matters almost as much what you do as it does what you believe---going further with this would require thinking about the implications of the reformation--we could go there, but it wold be long)--it creates trouble for thinking about judiasm, trouble for thinking about islam--and constitutes the basis for a wholesale distortion of other types of spirituality (false separation betwen spheres of activity in the case of "primitive" societies, for example, evidence of which you can find in any african art museum of an appropriate age) and the posing of false problems historical (have a look a paul veyne's book "did the greeks believe their myths" for a great dismantling of these problems)

behind this is the assumption that all spiritual traditions amount to variations on christianity--which is a legacy of 19th century colonialism.

it is a simple fact that christianity and imperialism are closely intertwined: christianity assumes that other types of spiritual practice are inferior to itself, repetitions of its own (largely mythological) history that need to be "updated" by conversion, preferably voluntary, but violent if need be (unbelievers are evil after all)---the ideology of euro-colonialism is difficult to even imagine without its christian assumptions. it is typical within the marxist tradition of historiography to see the late 19th century colonial takeover of subsaharan africa (for example) as a response to monopoly capitalism--the centralization and rationalization of industrial production and the pressures for new an cheaper soures of raw materials that came along with it--but the ideology of colonialism was the "white man's burden" or "the civilizing mission"---which amounted to conversion to christianity, which was taken as identical with "civilization". seen from the outside, that equivalence is insane--but from within, apparently it made sense...in a sense, the history of european colonialism is the history of the implications of this kind of belief, and much of the violence of colonialism can be laid at its feet.

but i dont think you could say that christianity *caused* colonialism---i am not sure that you could point to a single cause--but you can't get around its centrality as an ideology of colonialism, a rationalization/justification of it on the one hand, and an ideological grid that extended its reach and violence on the other.

so you have all kinds of problems with simplistic narratives about the role of "religion" in history--and much of the above that speaks to history and religion above is just that--simplistic---so much so that the statements are more about the strange way in which history is recieved as a body of infotainment today than they are about the past.

sometimes i wonder if the line that "religion" is at the source of all or most human conflict is anything other than an attempt to spread out the problems created by the white man's burden ideology across the 19th and 20th centuries by making all of it into a particular manifestation of a universal problem. if all "religions" generate violence, then colonialism is just a particular instance of that and there are no particular problems to be associated with that particular instance that do not obtain for all other instances.

and with that this rant reaches its end.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Ample

For me, I don’t talk about religion and politics with someone cause I like to keep some type of privacy or mystique, and not reveal so much about myself. So many people including myself think they know people in and out if they just know there stance on the subject.

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MSD

I used to be devoutly religious. Around age 14, I started thinking for myself instead of taking the easy way out and believing what I was told to believe. For a couple of years, I kept with the idea that all religions have an element of truth and that nobody would be excluded from heaven as long as they were good people. For a couple of years after that, I lost faith in organized religion, seeing it as a way for a few people to control the masses, and that good deeds were the way to salvation, and assuming that the God I believed in would allow anyone who was a good person into heaven.

At this point, I have completed my progression into cynicism. I believe that religion in all forms is nothing other than a means of controlling and manipulating people (based largely on what the church of my childhood, which was quite liberal by religious standards, said and did.) I believe that religion is a plague on humanity that holds us back from achieving what we could if we were to go ahead with out lives free of the fear of divine retribution that has been hammered into us from the time we were young. I feel that anyone who follows any religious movement has been brainwashed by someone who wishes to manipulate them (whether those at the top believe or simply manipulate, I don't know.) I feel that the notion that God created us in his image is a desparate grasp at meaning by those who are unwilling to accept that they are just lumps of carbon (etc.) that got hit by lightning, crawled out of the primordial ooze, and ended up evolving into sentient beings. I believe that man created God in his image so that he did not feel so small and alone, and so that those who originally "spoke to God" were either delusional, or that they were lying in order to gain control over others.

As anti-religious as I am, I consider Atheists who are certain that there is no God to be every bit as bad as fundamentalists who tell me that I'm going to hell. I don't believe in God, but I'm not naive enough to make the asertion that I can know for certain that there is no God. What I do know is that I am a logical, rational, scientific person who will not believe anything that cannot be proven true or false. I have been told that this means Science is my religion, and if you really want to phrase it that way, I won't complain.

As a final note, I must point out that the only reason I said nay of this is because you asked. If you hadn't, I would have kept my mouth shut. To me anything else embodies the most offensive thing about religion.

CSflim

Many people are very insecure about their religious beliefs. They don't want to examine them too carefully lest they fail to stand up to close scrutiny. Even a non-adversarial conversation with someone who does not share the same religious viewpoint could force them to an extent to pose some questions to themselves that they may not like to think about.

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