Disrespect towards Religions?

It is somewhat of disrespectful... and , yet is barely like some religion joke ... I think that as long as the joke does not disrespect "people" , but a subject or objects it is ok..ish. If only because the church has always been in the upper position of society, and most of time as opressors, and I don't have any problem making fun with opressors like:

 

Kay, so, since many of you start out by stating where you stand on the subject of religion, I would like to say that I am an avid Christian, if not the best. I try to read my Bible, I attend church very regularly (kinda have to, as I am heavily involved in ministry there, although I'm almost always late) and I try my very best to hold to the principles and morals taught within the Bible. I wasn't always like that, for a long time I pretty much wanted nothing to do with any of it. But I was changed, and I'm trying to learn to let my life reflect that change.

That said, I'd like to think I'm pretty tolerant most of the time. I have friends from all walks of life, and I am always willing to try new things, as long as they don't go against the morals and principles I strive to uphold. I try not to parade these beliefs, and don't usually bring them up unless specifically asked, or I mention them in passing if I'm trying to explain why I won't watch this-or-that movie or show. Whenever my principles are challenged or brought into question, I do everything in my power to resolve my doubts, and if I find I am in the wrong, I try to change my beliefs accordingly. Because I am human, I make mistakes, and I can accept that. I'm not trying to excuse myself, but I can live without regret. That said, whenever I look back on things I've said in my life, even things I've said here on this site back in the day when I was into debating and stuff, I constantly am ashamed of how wrong I was, not just in some of the things I've said, but in the spirit I said them. For me, the biggest deal was pride. Even while preaching love I sneered at everyone. That's still something I have a hard time with. There are people I know irl that I avoid because I know I'll end up mocking them if I spend more than ten minutes in their company, not because of any belief or lifestyle they may have, but because they talk and I get angry with how wrong they are (and I'm only talking like, "Batman is a bad Marvel superhero" wrong, not anything morally). I know I'm no smarter than they are, they excel in things I don't get at all, we just have different areas of knowledge. But I find myself being intolerant of ignorance, even in myself, and I still haven't learned the finer points of just letting it go and ignoring when people text me misspelled words with no punctuation.

So, when I saw the pic in the OP, I'll admit, I was offended. Because, as it's been established in previous posts, symbolism can be a very strong thing, and to see a symbol that is important to me being treated like that is a bit unnerving. I even had this little like, flashback moment of sitting in Sunday School singing that one song, "the B-I-B-L-E, yes that's the book for me, I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E," and me, confused, asking the teacher why we were singing about standing on a Bible and her having to explain to me the concept of metaphorical vs literal uses of the word "standing." But, as also stated in previous posts, it's the internet. This was just some troll trying to start a little bit of internet drama. Honestly, I've seen huge internet blow-ups over stuff waaaaay more trivial than that (which is why I don't do facebook anymore. Or tumblr. Or pretty much anything but KHV and fanfic). So after huffing a bit, I rolled my eyes and moved on. So, as for the pic itself, yeah, the Bible is just paper, ink, and a binding. The act of microwaving a piece of pizza on any book is something I find rather distressing, imagine having food cooked on my copy of Jane Eyre I bought for ten cents at a library sale. Or worse, my worn copy of the Silmarillion I received from my grandfather's book collection after his death. lol, I suppose one could take it a step further. Imagine having food cooked on the worn copy of the Bible I received from my grandfather's book collection after his death. Now, THAT would really get my goat. But all that aside, I think the real issue here, if issue is even the right word, is not the act itself, but the spirit behind it.

To me, it seems kinda obvious that the spirit behind the picture is negative; if it were truly as simple a matter as them being out of plates and grabbing whatever's handy, they would have done it, eaten the pizza and moved on without a second thought. The mere fact that they took the time to find a Bible (the thing looks hardly touched, it either was fairly new or it was tucked away somewhere and never exposed to daily handling, thus it wouldn't have been easily within arms reach between the fridge and the microwave), position the pizza so as not to obscure the words (really, ineffective way to microwave a slice of pizza. The end is hanging off the edge, when there's plenty of space for it to be completely on the Bible) and take a pic to upload onto tumblr (dude, in that time, the pizza could have been cooked and you could be sitting on the couch watching NCIS and enjoying your leftover meal), proves that they set out to tell their joke, offensive or not. Total side note, but I don't even think they followed through cooking it. That pizza looks cold and stiff, not floppy and greasy, and the absence of melted and subsequently fried cheese dripping from the sides onto the Bible makes the whole thing rather suspect. Not to mention the positioning is too perfect. Once you press start, there's no way to control whether the rotational plate stops where you can see the words or if the whole thing would end up facing the other direction entirely. If they actually microwaved it, they did so after they took the pic.

I guess, after all that, I'm trying to say that I can see this from several different perspectives. The Bible means something to me, and yes, something like that is rather offensive, to me. But it is true that "the Bible" is, in a sense, no more than paper. But it is also true that whoever took the pic is going out of their way to show their contempt for the Bible, not just going about their daily business. BUT it is also true that this is tumblr and therefore, is just something to roll our eyes at and move on. ONCE MORE, I SAY, BUT Meg, I completely understand where you're coming from; while I try not to be one of "those Christians," it does sadden me to see that intolerance such as is seen in this pic and the following comments, intolerance on both sides of the issue, exists.

 

I saw this picture on my news feed also, however, I found it to be quite amusing. Looking at it now though, it is rather disrespectful and I don't like it. Yes I am a Christian but I am one who is for gay marriage and believes everyone goes to heaven. Sadly, it's the homophobic christians who have the loudest voice so all christians are therefore steereotyped as such.

The people who say "religion is dead" are just people who aren't battered with it all the time and don't see religious people much but then that is simply down to cultural differences. I just wish everyone could accept that others believe different things and that there is no problem with it but alas that time of harmony will most likely never come because we are creatures who like to prove we are right and want people to be like us.

 

Bump ! I meant to address this as soon as I read it but then it just slipped my mind.

I have no problem wrapping my mind around the concept of God or "lol magic" in general. I' m an atheist, not an anti-theist. I' ll just believe in religious claims (or any other kind of claim) when they can be backed up satisfyingly, not a second before. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

And if we' re talking about the kind of magic that has no detectable impact on nature then it is indistinguishable from the stuff that just doesn' t exist, they' re one and the same category.

 

Oh I understand! I didn't mean to accuse you of this, just to reaffirm that telling a non-religious person that they should not disrespect a book because it is somehow sacred to them isn't really going to change their mind/perspective, because sacrality is not something they are familiar with or also feel. To be honest I'd rather the defense "you should not put a slice of pizza on the Bible because it is offensive to many people" over "you should not put a slice of pizza on the Bible because the Bible is sacred." The former at least holds some weight with me -- and it's of course not to say that I will necessarily follow it, but that gets into utilitarianism and ethics which is a whole other can of worms, heh.

 

I'm going to be purly blunt here. If I saw this on another site I wouldn't think twice. That doesn't mean I don't believe in god, the holy spirit or anything I just personally, do not find this offensive. As points where made before .. I agree. This is a just a book with no true vaulebesides what is written on them. Yes, it might be symbolic to others, but not to me. Was this a cruel joke? Yes. The words in this book is just everywhere these days. Podcasts, web, CDs, tapes, videos, ect. I don't want to come off as wrong or anything, this is just my opinion.

 

I agree with them, I doubt Katty Perry did it deliberately and if she did, well, just let God deal with it. Cenk loses me with his last point though, although it is possible that some of the outcry comes from people who don' t actually buy that stuff I hardly think that' s the only explanation, bit of a blanket statement.

 

Something going on at my school made me think of this thread.

It's a large university, with a very diverse array of students. While there is a lot of Christian organizations on campus, we also have many other clubs for different religions. There's one for Islam, the Wiccans give tarot card readings on Fridays, and Atheists/Agnostics have their own organization. Everyone has posters everywhere advertising their particular club, may have a booth standing outside the student union or library, and the school even allows them to use chalk to write on the sidewalk. Basically, religions organizations are no better than any other club.

Recently, one organization was putting Bible verses on the sidewalk. I pass by them, not really reading them, but I don't think they're inflamitory. Just standard stuff: be a good person with the occasional "be redeemed through Jesus" stuff. Well, in front of the library, right next to one of the verses, someone wrote something along the lines of "I didn't pay to come to this school to be taught religion. If I want to give you my money, I'd throw it in the basket" with the Anarchy symbol next to it. This has hapened a few more times, mostly around the main library. One of them even signed it "Have a very Atheist day", again with the anarchy symbol next to it (the next morning, I found that someone crossed out "Atheist" and put "Anarchy" above it).

With all of this, what is your take on it?

Personally, it feels very much like a double standard. I've said it before (in this thread I believe), I don't care what you believe, just don't be a dick because of it. Everyone has a right to believe what they wish to. Are these same people who are going after the bible quotes going to protest against the Wiccans or the Islams when they are spreading their beliefs? I'm willing to say they wouldn't.

One of the complains was that they didn't want to see religion everywhere. My guess would be they wouldn't want all the advertisement to be there for the various clubs/organizations. Wouldn't that also mean that they would have to take down all of their posters and flyers as well?

I'm curious at others think of this.

 

And I think it just heated up on my campus. Came by the library today to see an entire chalk argument happening, where the guy posting the Atheist stuff actually got the cops called on him. It's very much a back and forth, which has become so much of a circus that I can't help but laugh at it. And my campus is sort of the same too, the Christians and Atheists are the loudest groups here, although there hasn't been much tension until now. I hate it when Christians say "you're going to hell" as I do Atheists saying that believing in something bigger then yourself is "childish and stupid".

It turns out that this guy is a Criminal Justice major and is setting up meetings in front of the library to "discuss" what is happening. I'm half willing to talk to this guy, to see what he's really like. I'll tell him that he's not any better than the radical Christians and he's giving others with his beliefs a bad name.

That's the thing with radicals though. They don't represent the vast majority of those who follow that faith/belief at all, but they are the loudest, so they're heard more than others.

 

I assume that was in a public school ? Unless he' s actually been forced to endure sermons coming from his teachers (and I do mean teachers, not students) he just displayed his stupidity for everyone to see.

If it was a private school that' s so beyond stupid I' m at a loss for word.

 

It's a public university, and as far as I know, teachers aren't allowed to discuss such things unless you are taking a religious course. Now, there have been instances in class where religion has been mention. In my Introduction to Language class, when we were discussing the origins of Language, my teacher brought up the Tower of Babel as a theory that goes around, but brings up other supernatural theories as well as explaining how language came through evolution and such. I was looking up a Creative Writing minor and it had a required class called "The Bible as Literature". Yes, I'm guessing you have to read through the Bible, but not in a religious sense. Of course, I don't know what classes this guy has taken besides general education course (most of which I've already done, and so far had no religious troubles outside of a professor that bashed on those who believed in a God(s)), so I don't know about what he has experienced. Being a CJ major, it seems unlikely to be dealing with such things.

 

I' m not sure what to make of that. I mean scientifically speaking the tower of Babel isn' t a theory, it' s an hypothesis. Depends how the teacher worded it exactly. As I understand it pushing that kind of equivocation fallacy in public schools isn' t unheard of in the US.

 

Ohh, what a difference context makes.

So, I did end up going to meet with the guy when he said that he would be there. We actually had a pretty decent conversation. From what he told me was that he had no problem with the various clubs/organizations having their meetings, but to not preach to him. He didn't like the chalk Bible passages, and he decided to counter against that. There was a big chalk argument on display as well, and he clarified that there were other atheists involved that had nothing to do with him that provided the snied comments (his always had that Anarchy symbol, which he explained was actually the atheist symbol since the symbol was an "A" inside of a circle and had no protrusions).

His whole idea behind this was to start a conversation, to have people from different backgrounds talk about their beliefs in a civil manner. While I can commend him for wanting to do such a thing, I feel that there was a better way of going about this.

While I will give him that once I separated the posts from his and others, I saw that he wasn't really attacking religion, but those who were attacking him. The only part we disagree on is him responding to the Bible quote. As I said before, sidewalk chalk means nothing to me for the most part. It's white noise that can be ignored, and I felt that responding to that set him up for this.

I'm sure I worded it wrong. It didn't equate it, but rather brought it up as looking at how people thought language was brought into the world.

 

You know, I knew the US was a very puritan country, it' s all over your movies and your TV shows, but I had no idea just how far it went and what the consequences could be for atheists. I found that out when I joined this forum.

I' ve been told I' d go to hell, saw assertions that atheists have no morals or that they just pretend not to believe, stuff like that. Major wtf. I tried to remain civil about it, assuming they probably just didn' t know any better. Giving them back a taste of their own medecine would have hardly improved the situation. That being said, even though I don' t approve, I can totally understand why atheists (or any other clearly discriminated minority for that matter) would feel like lashing out. Gave me some perspective.

 

As a practicing catholic, I did find it a disappointment to see that there are (and will potentially always be) individuals that would pull stunts off like this to different religious groups, be it a joke or not.

But it is as Styx and other members mentioned earlier. They aren't attacking the content of the bible. If this was the case that they were poking fun as well as attacking what was inside the bible, then it would be an entirely different story.

Better to not acknowledge these online posts such as the one shown (no matter how enraging it may feel just looking at it), and keep your chin held high, no matter how hard it is to do so. Try your best to not acknowledge it, especially in a place like the internet where the person is hiding behind a screen posting joke upon insulting joke.

That picture is not a representation of how everybody views the religion, be they religious or not. There are people who are respective of those with religion who are not, and vice versa.

I'm not saying just ignore these things completely. Its just that it would be better to just leave this particular post be. They're just ignorant individuals who think that it's funny doing something stupid like this.

They clearly did not see the physical health and safety implications of putting a book, (any book, be it bible or not) into the microwave with the pizza. They may have thought however it was worth it, all to insult individuals.

Anyway, I hope I'm not being mean when I'm saying this, however... joke really is on them if OP's stomach starts disagreeing with them after consuming said pizza. Especially when OP realises that the bible THEY placed inside the microwave contained plastic or some other kind of melted chemical. :3

Hope I've made some sort of sense with this post!

◟꒰⁺᾽ ऀืົཽ ˡ̼̮ ऀืົཽ⁺̥̥̥̥̥꒱◞

 

This amused me quite a bit and so true. Of course, the person could have known this and decided to take the picture as a joke because, if it was me without a plate, I would just put the pizza on the turnplate any way as opposed to getting another flat surface. I do hope it wasn't a picture where it's only intention was to attack Christianity because that makes them no better than the Christians intent on the "turn or burn" preach.

I don't think religion is the cause of many arguments and a lot of problems in this world like so many think, it's how others deal with other people's religions and opinions that is the cause of it and that goes for both religious and athiest. Like tummer said, believe what ever you want just don't shove it in people's faces and be an idiot about it.

 

Just adding a point I forgot to do originally, and Patman's use of the idea of 'magic' and religion sparked back that thought.

Most atheist I find online are misinformed or stereotyping religious people from a few extremists. They think of them as the puritan extreme that still believe the devil lurks in the woods or that Native Americans are devil people unable to be civilised. Many atheists ignore the modern Christian, for example, who believe in gay marriage, the big bang theory and respect other people's religions. Plenty of scientists too, actually. Christians have throughout history been scientist, inventors and theorists in Europe. Not detracting from the crusades, but science was spurred on by religious curiosity, the search for the reasons God did this or that.

Both atheistic and religious people are too easily lumped into groups and are rarely considered as individuals.