so-I live in an area with very conservative Christian values.

[w8liftinglady]

I am trying,through my lttes to open their eyes.I love God,and want to do right.how do you react in your area?

[w8liftinglady]

1. don't be shy

[Warpy]

2. One issue at a time

relating it to what Jesus said--not Paul, not Leviticus, not Deuteronomy, but Jesus.

Then you can relate it to each party's platform.

The problem with religious conservatives is that they've never actually read their bibles. They really don't know what Jesus said and what he didn't say. They rely on corrupt ministers bought off with GOP faith based dollars.

Trying to educate them is probably your best bet.

[kestrel91316]

3. I live in Los Angeles. Politics isn't even on most people's radar.

Too busy shopping and watching Dancing With The Stars and following Brittney's latest antics.

Those with any intellect to speak of, however, tend to lean left.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. In the area where I live,

there are conservative Christian churches and VERY conservative "churches"--those are the kind that make the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Groups list.

What I do in public is to be myself. A lot of folks assume that I am Christian, and I don't tell them otherwise. My long time boss often ranted against Muslims, and I kept my mouth shut. The lady I work for now knows and has long known both my religious and political affiliations, and has no problem with them at all! I know a bunch of mystics in my area, and we keep in touch, but don't talk of things openly because of prejudice by the general public. However, we do work quietly--showing our belief system by example rather than by talking about it.

Hope this helps.

[w8liftinglady]

5. why is it so hard to be liberal and Christian?

[JerseygirlCT]

7. is it?

I think they go together pretty well.

In fact, I wonder how people with those strongly conservative views manage to mesh those with Christianity.

[w8liftinglady]

8. not here..

[JerseygirlCT]

6. This is a fairly open-minded area

The most eye-opening that seems to be needed in my immediate area is because of plain old ignorance. People who've just never been exposed to other people outside their own traditions. Not hostile to differences, just never having come upon them. Like the people who asked my (Jewish) husband once if he celebrated Thanksgiving... For them, anything not Roman Catholic was sort of strange and exotic!

But New England, although home of the puritans at one time, tends to be pretty reserved about religion, and also tolerant. It's your own business, and most don't talk too much about it.

[blueatheart]

11. that is what I miss so much about New England

Having grown up there, I rarely came across someone even mentioning their views and beliefs unless it was relative to the conversation or a close relationship. Here in Florida, people come up to you and tell you your going to hell, lol, this is before they even know your beliefs or anything about you. I will never come to an understanding on why so many businesses down here put signs up about their religious and political beliefs.

[JerseygirlCT]

18. Yeah that would be seen as pretty rude around here!

Which is nice.

[ngant17]

9. churches play a social function

and it is important to remember this.

OK, God is an imaginary idea, like the square root of a negative number, it is really secondary for me. Of course, I don't explain these things to the Christians in my area, I live in Central Florida and there are a lot of silly conservative religious persons here. I go to a Methodist church, I don't have a problem with being essentially an atheist or existentialist and going to church, but the main thing is that I don't openly confront the rightwingers in the pews.

For example, some of these members I know, one of them will dress up in the old Confederate uniforms, they do this on the local 4th of July parades, they are into the Civil War enactments and so forth, they really believe that the South was fighting a noble cause. I just laugh about it to myself. Thank God they didn't win the war! On the surface, they are nice people and I don't say or do anything to them personally to antagonize them. There is always good in people so I would try to find the good things we might have in common and capitalize on that.

[aspergris]

10. you can't explain

that god is imaginary, unless you are a strong atheist. in which case, you are just as faith based as any theist.

you can SAY that god doesn't exist, and you very may well be right.

as soon as you use words like "explain" god doesn't exist, you just sound pompous and self-righteous.

which is as annoying in theists, as it is in atheists

[ngant17]

12. lack of faith vrs. lack of evidence

I think there is a difference between faith and factual evidence.

I also think you can believe in something akin to a god without necessarily abandoning logical and rational thinking. For example, the Gaia Hypothesis is a theory that the entire earth as a whole, it functions as a single biological system.

Just as the ancient Greeks called their Earth goddess Ge or Gaia, and Mother Earth might be worshipped as the Hindu goddess Kali, it can also be interpreted thru a scientific and rational theory that the planet Earth exists as a living organism.

So I have no problem with either approach and if you want to view the Earth as a goddess, either from a rational or religious viewpoint, I think you would be right on both counts. Feel free to worship Gaia from a religious or scientific perspective, or both.

But in another aspect, yes, I am calling out God as essentially imaginary, similar to the imaginary or complex numbers. Both concepts can be useful in one way or another, even though it might not be possible to actually visualize it.

It's possible to know God from a perspective that may not be entirely rational or logical. That doesn't mean you have to be crazy to know God, but it takes some form of knowledge that exists on a higher or spiritual dimension, which is not the normal dimension we exist in on a daily basis. So I don't deny God in this respect.

[aspergris]

13. knowing that there isn't a god

is just as much a leap of faith as knowing that there is

some of the smartest and most rational people on the face of the earth are theists. and some are atheists. that much is clear
my point was that the guy who said he EXPLAINED to people that there was no god, was being just as dogmatic as somebody who explained that there is.

ultimately either position is an act of faith.

being an agnostic would not be. but knowing there is no god is just as much a leap as knowing that there is.

and either may be right. note I'm not saying i am a theist, agnostic, or atheist. i am merely comparing and contrasting

[Meshuga]

14. Sure but

What if I came to you and said that I know there is not Santa Claus? Is that a leap of faith as well?

Like Santa Claus, the different concepts of God, as people believe today, were created by humanity.

[aspergris]

15. in your opinion

others would say they were man's realization of the nature of god.

[Meshuga]

16. But what would you say

If I came to you and said that I know there is not Santa Claus? Is that a leap of faith as well?

Regardless where the different concepts of God came from (even if one explains it as "man's realization of the nature of God"), all these concepts are man made, it is not opinion but fact. Granted, people who believe in God will create their own nature of how they perceive God and the "man's realization of the nature of God" phrase is very useful in learning different concepts in order to enrich one's own belief. But people who do not have a need to believe have no realization of the nature of anything. There is no leap of faith but the lack of "needing to know" or "belief in" whatever the concept of God that is being brought up.

[aspergris]

17. everything we know

is "man made" because it comes to us through our senses and intellect. if you want to get all philosophical n stuff.

[Meshuga]

20. It is not a matter of getting philosophical

It is a matter of calling belief and non-belief for what they are. One is obviously based on faith. The other is the lack of belief/faith. Trying to bring non-belief to the realm of religion by attributing faith to atheists is just as ridiculous as the argument by creationists that evolution is a belief.

[aspergris]

21. nope

this has been endlessly discussed. i'llmake it brief.

people who say they KNOW there is no god have made a leap of faith. they are claiming knowledge

ditto theists.

it's really that simple. and it's been discussed here and elsewhere ad nauseum

[Meshuga]

22. Then I will assume

Your answer to the question I made is that, in fact, it is a leap of faith to claim to know that Santa Claus does not exist. Or that it is a leap of faith to claim Zeus does not exist.

And I hope you understand that the fact that the attempts to attribute faith to atheists has been discussed here and elsewhere ad nauseum does not mean that there is a resolution to the argument. Just because you fail (or are not willing) to understand where atheists are coming from does not turn your conclusions into fact or into a general consensus.

[ngant17]

23. if you assume the Judeo-Christian god exists, then

would it not also be right to say that Zeus, Odin, Allah and all the pagan gods also exist? And wouldn't it be right to honor those really brutal and primitive gods of the New World, such as Buluc Chabtan, the fire god Tohil, and Huitzilopochtli who required from the Aztecs and Mayans the decapitated heads and still-beating hearts of their victims sacrificed on top of pyramids in the jungles?

Come to think of it, the Judeo-Christian tradition has a few cases of human sacrifice so Jehovah wasn't so very far removed from those blood-thirsty gods of the New World.

[regularguy]

19. It seems that most folks in my area go to some sort of church,

but right wing Republic-party type of religous conservativism is almost unheard of. I actually enjoy meeting one every once in a while...sort of exotic. But I have relatives in other areas of the country so I know what you're talking about.

[Marrah_G]

24. React to what?

Can you clarify the question?