I'm more ashamed to admit to TBMs my spiritual experiences with Athena than I am with my experiments in atheism. Last night, my old mission comp asked if I have been praying. I said I have and I have been given very powerful confirmations, similar to when I was believing. He asked, "You prayed to ask if the Book of Mormon is false?" I said no but I didn't dare tell him what I really prayed about and who I prayed to. I realized all of a sudden that I might just be persecuted for my pagan beliefs. So he left my house thinking I have no regard for the divine at all. he thinks I just cast it all to the wind because I didn't dare tell him everything.
I wonder what America would detest more: Atheists or Pagans?
Z
I have been to the Acropolis in Athens. I have walked around the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena. It was inspiring and moving. You simply must make a pilgrimage some day.
I have been to the Acropolis in Athens. I have walked around the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena. It was inspiring and moving. You simply must make a pilgrimage some day.
Jason,
Thanks for sharing! I'm happy to hear it was inspiring for you. Yes, I really do need to take a pilgrimage to the Motherland.
Zee.
Buff,
I have a feeling the two groups of people you mentioned in the OP give many people fear. Do you think your typical, older generation Mormon conservative fears atheists and gays more than Muslims?
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
Okay, I am devout and I have friends who are atheists as well as a few who are lesbians -- I even have some acquaintances who are pagan. I have no idea why someone would hate someone for those things -- especially if one is LDS. Oh well, suppose there are a few.
Fiannan wrote:Okay, I am devout and I have friends who are atheists as well as a few who are lesbians -- I even have some acquaintances who are pagan. I have no idea why someone would hate someone for those things -- especially if one is LDS. Oh well, suppose there are a few.
yeah, I would think "hate" is the wrong word. I don't necessarily see that either. Even here in the center of the Republican Mormon universe. I do however, believe there is fear.
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
EAllusion wrote:Atheists really are despised in America in a way that is astounding when you peel back what is so easy to take for granted. Much more so than groups we tend to think of as having oppressed minority status, like gays or Muslims. If I have time, I'll pull up some CNN straight news clips talking about atheists as if the term was on par with child molester.
I would love to see them. My BIL thinks atheists are a bunch of whining losers because they claim to be persecuted yet they were never targeted for extermination like Jews in Nazi Germany.
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond
Apparently atheists are the most hated group in America. Per LDS persecution complex doctrine, I guess that means we're the most favored by God, too. At any rate, why do you think that is, theists? Most atheists are pretty mild mannered. They're English professors and scientists and Ayn Rand-reading libertarians. What makes Atheists so awful? Is it just that we don't believe in the particular God you're rooting for?
Edit: I'm not sure why I put gays in there, except that this is a forum about Mormonism, and orthodox Mormons are still cool with persecuting gay people.
There are also plenty of atheists who are vapid, pretentious morons with just enough of learning to misquote. Those are the sort of atheists I despise.
Luckily atheists and gays aren't as easily recognized as minorities, women, or the infamous female minority.
Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded.-charity 3/7/07
MASH quotes I peeked in the back [of the Bible] Frank, the Devil did it. I avoid church religiously. This isn't one of my sermons, I expect you to listen.
Well darn, then I must hate myself because I've been atheist and dabbled in paganism, polytheism and the occult. I could never buy it...it was the fairy blessings that ended that interest. But, I have friends from those times still, and I don't hate my husband, who is as godless as one can get.
Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction -Pope Benedict XVI