Exhaustion

[AnimatedDirt]

[...]But you're here saying, "Woe is me..."??  If your life and beliefs are far superior in intellect, reason and logic to the fool's life and practice(s), why lower yourself to their level?

I'm in a very similar situation so I think I can address this on topic like. My parents are very smart people, very knowledgeable and very Christian. I was a Christian. I'm pretty sure my intelligence didn't change during my mental transformation from Christian to atheist. If I thought that I was more intelligent than religious people just because I'm an atheist, then I'd have to take the stance that I'm now more intelligent than I was when I was a Christian. However I think there's a much more simplistic explanation; it's just that the order of things and the things themselves that are important to me aren't the same things and order that are important to my parents.

The other thing is that there is some benefit from meeting with family a few times a year almost no matter what the reason is (yes even a funeral for a family reunion is beneficial), it would be nice to have the benefit of meeting up with family without the attempts of them converting me. However to me, the benefits of reuniting with my family outweigh the negatives of them occasionally attempting to convert me. It's in an odd way comforting that they care for me and show it by trying to save my eternal soul in the only way they believe will save it. The problem isn't that it makes me directly uncomfortable, it's that it always makes my family uncomfortable and I get uncomfortable because they are.

Thank you for the thoughtful answer.  While I still feel the same towards the OP on this thread, that being that he/she is not living according to their beliefs, I gather from your point here that you may truly love and so do not label your family as "uneducated religious" or "brainwashed".  That isn't love and would therefore make it illogical and nonsense to spend time with the family during this season.  It's my point exactly.  If you don't love your family, thinking them uneducated, brainwashed, lunatics, deluded, ignorant...and all the other unloving adjectives used here, why go?  If you have to ask and/or complain, then it serves no logical purpose and goes 100% against what "you" claim in Atheism and the scientific method of your thinking driving your 'faith' and not the other way around.  If you think and know, then act accordingly.  If you CHOOSE to act against your thinking, then don't complain about the facts having known the facts before going in.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
From: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6385

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[Whitney]

I would point out that you can think someone is stupid yet still love them...for an extreme example, many people love their mentally challenged family members despite the disability.  So, it isn't far fetched to think that someone could also love a family member who they think is mentally lacking to a less extreme degree.  I would think that a Christian would be one of the first to think this kind of love is possible...hate the sin love the sinner.

[Inevitable Droid]

If you don't love your family, thinking them uneducated, brainwashed, lunatics, deluded, ignorant...and all the other unloving adjectives used here, why go?

It is possible to love someone as family and simultaneously think they're brainwashed fools with respect to epistemology.  I'm still trying to decide if you really don't understand this or if you're deliberately playing ignorant because you think you're making a point.  Family love can be unconditional and often is.  Unconditional love by definition looks beyond conditions, for example the condition of being a brainwashed fool with respect to epistemology.  Looking beyond a condition isn't the same thing as failing to see and name it.
 

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
From: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6385

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Ah, so you've been reading that thread!  I was wondering if any Christians were doing so.

The key words in what you've quoted are need not.  They beg the question as to what humans need.  Most humans need family in order to be happy.  It's a biological imperative probably selected by nature for its survival value, which is why family problems can feel like life or death.

Needs come in three broad categories: survival, success, and happiness.  Any of these can put someone in a predicament they can neither change nor exit with any sort of grace, and so they must accept.  Sometimes accepting can be hard.  At these times, coming to friends for emotional support can help.  The non-believers on this message board, or at least the ones who responded, were willing to provide that emotional support, and did.

Incidentally, we non-believers who have responded have largely declined to comment on the behavior of the relatives described in the OP.  Not their epistemology - their behavior.  I'm sure we all have opinions in that area.  But out of courtesy toward the author of the OP, we declined to comment about people he loves as family.  Such courtesy is fairly common among non-believers, and is absolutely the rule among people who follow the lifestyle described in the thread you reference above.

[AnimatedDirt]

I would point out that you can think someone is stupid yet still love them...for an extreme example, many people love their mentally challenged family members despite the disability.  So, it isn't far fetched to think that someone could also love a family member who they think is mentally lacking to a less extreme degree.  I would think that a Christian would be one of the first to think this kind of love is possible...hate the sin love the sinner.

I don't think you're equating a mental disability with one that for all intents and purposes does not have a mental disability, or I hope you're not.  The mentally challenged do not have a choice in their disability, but family that is "uneducated", chooses folly, is unreasonable, ignores facts, whose faith drives their thinking instead of their thinking driving them does, and therein lies the difference.  The OP is complaining of a family that is, as he/she agreed, is uneducated, fools, brainwashed, contradictory, futile, judgemental, illogical...and the list goes on.  The question then remains; Why?  One would NEVER ask this or complain of spending time with a family member whom is seemingly loved who may or may not be mentally challenged.  It's not the same thing, IMHO.

No free thinking person should be "goaded" into something they don't want to do or don't enjoy doing.  The "fact", I think, is, he/she does enjoy the gatherings as a forum to show his/her superior thinking and rationalizing skills...else why would they enter AND allow themselves to be "goaded"?  Why associate with people who are all those things listed above and why above all else, "love" these?  Is love, then, not pity in this case?  But wait...the OP mentioned free food and free gifts.  What would you (a general 'you') say to someone doing the same of mentally challenged people?  Hanging out with them simply to gain whatever is available for free?

[Davin]

Thank you for the thoughtful answer.  While I still feel the same towards the OP on this thread, that being that he/she is not living according to their beliefs, I gather from your point here that you may truly love and so do not label your family as "uneducated religious" or "brainwashed".  That isn't love and would therefore make it illogical and nonsense to spend time with the family during this season.  It's my point exactly.  If you don't love your family, thinking them uneducated, brainwashed, lunatics, deluded, ignorant...and all the other unloving adjectives used here, why go?  If you have to ask and/or complain, then it serves no logical purpose and goes 100% against what "you" claim in Atheism and the scientific method of your thinking driving your 'faith' and not the other way around.  If you think and know, then act accordingly.  If you CHOOSE to act against your thinking, then don't complain about the facts having known the facts before going in.

I do not use labels much, and I never to attempt to pigeon hole a person with them. Seeing as how I have no problem with someone pointing our where my logic fails (takes more than just a claim), I have no problem with pointing out where other people's logic fails. So I see no reason why I can't both say that a person is being illogical and love them at the same time. In my view, pointing out where a person's logic fails is an act of love and compassion. Much like letting a friend or family member know that their zipper is down.

I see a few logical purposes of complaining about something to others not involved directly with the thing one is complaining about: to see if ones complaints are warranted, to see how other people deal with the same thing in order to possibly find better ways for ones self to deal with it, getting it off ones chest and out in the open somewhere often makes one feel better and to better be able to handle the stress that the thing one is complaining about causes, and/or many other reasons. To complain to those that are causing the issue that one is complaining about might possibly get the people doing it to stop. So there are rational reasons to complain about things.

A little quip: "[...]"you" claim in Atheism and the scientific method of your thinking driving your 'faith'[...]" It is not 'faith' whether in quotes or not. The lack of belief in something, can never be faith, because it is the absence of it. And empty cup is not a cup with water in it. Also, "I've" never made any claim similar to the claim you claim I have claimed.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
From: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6385

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Yes, I've read that thread. It's not a concept I subscribe to as you can see by my above response. What is your point in bringing this up in response to my response?

[Davin]

What would you (a general 'you') say to someone doing the same of mentally challenged people?  Hanging out with them simply to gain whatever is available for free?

Because the family members the OP is talking about already know that the OP doesn't subscribe to their beliefs so I think it's safe to assume that the OP's beliefs are not dependent on the OP receiving the gifts. So the OP is in no conceivable way taking advantage of anyone. Hanging out with those who have mentally developed disorders simply to gain whatever is free is far different and the comparison triggers my troll sense.

[AnimatedDirt]

It is possible to love someone as family and simultaneously think they're brainwashed fools with respect to epistemology.  I'm still trying to decide if you really don't understand this or if you're deliberately playing ignorant because you think you're making a point.  Family love can be unconditional and often is.  Unconditional love by definition looks beyond conditions, for example the condition of being a brainwashed fool with respect to epistemology.  Looking beyond a condition isn't the same thing as failing to see and name it.

I'm not playing ignorant.  I appreciate your honest replies.  It is not my intention to simply yell, "Hypocrite!" and run off laughing.  If that were the case, I would've done so long ago when I think the point was already made by another.

I agree with you that it is possible to love inspite of differences in beliefs.  However the point here is not silly beliefs such as Mac is better than PC so a day is set aside for Mac lovers to exchange gifts...or trivial points of belief.  We are dealing with what you have said is FALSE.  Full stop.  We are debating here, in the religion section of an Atheism forum, one point of belief being of life everlasting and the other of life is finite and life should be lived, maybe according to the Satanism you're discussing in another thread and its tenets.  Either you're right and I'm wrong, or you're wrong and I'm right.  The ramifications of one over the other is HUGE!  It's much like one thread someone mentioned the difference between Christianity and Medicine (or something to that effect) is that eventually the research for a cure for cancer will be seen.  We may not see it now, but we know something good will come of it.  Searching is not futile.  It's not a waste of time.  Contrast this with "God", we will never have a meeting with Him...because it is futile, nonsense, FALSE that there is such a god.
 

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
From: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6385

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Ah, so you've been reading that thread!  I was wondering if any Christians were doing so.

I have been following it.  I find it interesting, slightly dangerous IMHO as a Christian, but still interesting.  The point in this being that the OP is complaining about something which he/she has CHOSEN to subject themself to.  This goes against the 'religion' of Atheism...Satanic or not.

The key words in what you've quoted are need not.  They beg the question as to what humans need.  Most humans need family in order to be happy.  It's a biological imperative probably selected by nature for its survival value, which is why family problems can feel like life or death.

Are you suggesting one cannot find happiness without family?  So orphans are doomed to a sad live without that same love?  I suggest that "family" is simply people you love and love you back.  It need not be direct kin.  How is it that kids adopted find can crave more love and acceptance from those that nutured their growth than from their genetic parents?  It's not a matter of "family" but a matter of nurture.  What I find odd is that an Atheist would "need" this love from lunatics.

Needs come in three broad categories: survival, success, and happiness.  Any of these can put someone in a predicament they can neither change nor exit with any sort of grace, and so they must accept.  Sometimes accepting can be hard.  At these times, coming to friends for emotional support can help.  The non-believers on this message board, or at least the ones who responded, were willing to provide that emotional support, and did.

Incidentally, we non-believers who have responded have largely declined to comment on the behavior of the relatives described in the OP.  Not their epistemology - their behavior.  I'm sure we all have opinions in that area.  But out of courtesy toward the author of the OP, we declined to comment about people he loves as family.  Such courtesy is fairly common among non-believers, and is absolutely the rule among people who follow the lifestyle described in the thread you reference above.

I'm not sure why, if the OP agreed his family were lunatics and nuts...worse than mentally challenged.  Put the falsness of "God" into it's proper perspective on the matter and then you might see why I ask why the OP or anyone of the same thinking would subject themselves to this ANYWHERE.  It's not just Mac vs. PC.  (I'm a Mac person btw)  It's life and death.  Nothing to trifle with.

[AnimatedDirt]

What would you (a general 'you') say to someone doing the same of mentally challenged people?  Hanging out with them simply to gain whatever is available for free?

Because the family members the OP is talking about already know that the OP doesn't subscribe to their beliefs so I think it's safe to assume that the OP's beliefs are not dependent on the OP receiving the gifts. So the OP is in no conceivable way taking advantage of anyone. Hanging out with those who have mentally developed disorders simply to gain whatever is free is far different and the comparison triggers my troll sense.

Yes, I'd agree from the perspective of the "mentally challenged".  However, view it from the perspective of the one going in simply seeing free food and gifts.  Just because the one's being taken advantage of don't "mind", doesn't make it right...or does it?

[Inevitable Droid]

Hanging out with those who have mentally developed disorders simply to gain whatever is free is far different and the comparison triggers my troll sense.

Mine too.

So far, every Christian I've encountered here has triggered my troll sense.  I guess that's to be expected.

Because I have some nausea to vomit out, I think I'll post a thread about the true, the beautiful, and the good, and how they aren't the same.

Hey, I just noticed we have an emoticon that matches you-know-who:  

EDIT: typo.

[AnimatedDirt]

A little quip: "[...]"you" claim in Atheism and the scientific method of your thinking driving your 'faith'[...]" It is not 'faith' whether in quotes or not. The lack of belief in something, can never be faith, because it is the absence of it. And empty cup is not a cup with water in it. Also, "I've" never made any claim similar to the claim you claim I have claimed.

While I see it as such, I understand your point and respect it.  I'll try to keep this in mind.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
From: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6385

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Yes, I've read that thread. It's not a concept I subscribe to as you can see by my above response. What is your point in bringing this up in response to my response?

It wasn't necessarily directed at you exactly, but at anyone reading this topic...and more specifically since Inevitable Droid is participating in this topic, it related directly to him.  However it does, IMO, speak to any like-minded.

[Davin]

What would you (a general 'you') say to someone doing the same of mentally challenged people?  Hanging out with them simply to gain whatever is available for free?

Because the family members the OP is talking about already know that the OP doesn't subscribe to their beliefs so I think it's safe to assume that the OP's beliefs are not dependent on the OP receiving the gifts. So the OP is in no conceivable way taking advantage of anyone. Hanging out with those who have mentally developed disorders simply to gain whatever is free is far different and the comparison triggers my troll sense.

Yes, I'd agree from the perspective of the "mentally challenged".  However, view it from the perspective of the one going in simply seeing free food and gifts.  Just because the one's being taken advantage of don't "mind", doesn't make it right...or does it?

If the OP's family is like my family, then it's far more likely that the free food and stuff is bait to get the OP into a civilly difficult to escape position to be preached at, so the OP would have more chance of being taken advantage of than the family the OP is visiting.

[Whitney]

The mentally challenged do not have a choice in their disability, but family that is "uneducated", chooses folly, is unreasonable, ignores facts, whose faith drives their thinking instead of their thinking driving them does, and therein lies the difference.

Considering that research indicates that certain parts of the brain control one's tendency towards being religious and one can't have control over whether they were brainwashed I'm not sure there is much of a difference other than a difference of what exactly is wrong with the person.  No one chooses to be unreasonable, they think they are being reasonable; just think of how many people truly and honestly believe that "beauty exists" is a logical proof of god.  They can't help if they really are too dumb or have had their framework warped to the point that they can't process deeper thoughts....however if the OP's family is demonstratively intelligent in other ways then, yes, they aren't exactly genetically stuck in stupid land but there is probably still some sort of brainwashing controlling their thought patterns.  Nonetheless, I would still stand by my statement that one can love someone even though they think they are acting inappropriately...almost every child would be kicked to the curb if we didn't have that kind of capacity to love.

[AnimatedDirt]

Considering that research indicates that certain parts of the brain control one's tendency towards being religious and one can't have control over whether they were brainwashed I'm not sure there is much of a difference other than a difference of what exactly is wrong with the person.

Then the "family" isn't uneducated, futile, unreasonable, or brainwashed at all, but objects of their brain function (or dysfunction).

No one chooses to be unreasonable, they think they are being reasonable; just think of how many people truly and honestly believe that "beauty exists" is a logical proof of god.  They can't help if they really are too dumb or have had their framework warped to the point that they can't process deeper thoughts...

In light of your above point...I would tend to disagree they are dumb at all.

however if the OP's family is demonstratively intelligent in other ways then, yes, they aren't exactly genetically stuck in stupid land but there is probably still some sort of brainwashing controlling their thought patterns.  Nonetheless, I would still stand by my statement that one can love someone even though they think they are acting inappropriately...almost every child would be kicked to the curb if we didn't have that kind of capacity to love.

Again, this seems like we may be conveniently side-stepping the point.  If it is as Inevitable Droid promotes and how it seems Atheism on the whole says, that "God" is FALSE.  Full stop.  Is it really simply a matter of "acting inappropriately"?  As I mentioned a few posts back.  If this situation were twisted and it was my family that believed in a Great Spaghetti Monster and that once a year, the whole world (seemingly) got together to celebrate the birth of this GSM...I would not attend simply to be with family that because of my unbelief, goads me into arguments on, in my eyes, the ludicrous idea of a GSM.

We do have the capacity to love in that manner, the question remains; Why waste your time? Why spend time in 'loving' that which goads you into anything at all when you don't like it?

I would refer the OP back to:

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.

-my emphasis.

[Asmodean]

Hey, chronos, you do know the icon on your [current] avatar looks closer to some medieval Turkish dude than a Palestinian from the first century, right?  

[Whitney]

animated Dirt, if you are just trying to make the point that one who can't help but argue should avoid family situations celebrating events they are prone to argue about then I'd agree.  

But there is no problem with simply going to the event and keeping your mouth shut (leaving if provoked by others) if doing so makes the family happy and you enjoy the event aside from theological disagreement.  

If atheists avoided every holiday that was at some point touched by religion we wouldn't even be able to celebrate Halloween.