Christianity In The Work Place

[Geezer]

The non-religious, or so it seems to me, too often mistakenly think religious people are ignorant or at least only moderately educated. That is simply not true more often than not. In my 40 year stint with Christianity I’ve met numerous medical doctors, lawyers, pharmacist, corporate executives, nurses, and lots of engineers.

 

There is a huge difference between being uneducated and being indoctrinated. I think a better word for it is brainwashed. People who have been programmed simply do not think logically or rationally when it comes to their “beliefs.” They live in two different worlds with two different realities.

 

It is enormously difficult for long term believers to even begin to think objectively when it comes to issues of faith. If my experience was anything close to “normal”, then I would have to conclude until the believer begins to experience doubt on their own the changes of enlightening them is virtually null.

 

I taught bible classes for more than 30 years and I saw the inconsistencies and contradictions in the bible long before they became troublesome. Like virtually all Christians, for a long time, I either ignored them or rationalized them away. As time passed I found more and more troublesome problems with the Bible.

 

In an attempt to solve these problems I turned to history for the purpose of finding evidence that would explain why these problems existed and hopefully conclusively prove they were simply human errors in transcribing the scrolls. What I found shocked me because what I mostly discovered was that there isn’t any evidence. What I did find in abundance was evidence that convincingly proved that all of it had human origins.

 

One of the most damning pieces of evidence I found was that the Jesus story preceded him by as much as a thousand years. I was shocked to discover that dying-rising god-men stories were common in numerous cultures long before Jesus came on the scene. What I found not only shocked me it made me angry and it also made me sick to my stomach. I think one of the hardest things for anyone to admit is that they’ve been duped. I try not to look at 40+ years of my life as having been wasted, but that is admittedly difficult to do.

 

I’ve spend the last seven years of my life attempting to educate believers with little success. You can lead a horse to water…………

[Akheia]

The smarter and better-educated someone is, the easier s/he is to dupe, Geezer. People like that rest in their education and intelligence as protection against deception; they think they're just too smart to get taken in. I've known plenty of conjobs (mostly in the church, I might add) who deliberately targeted educated and smart people. Get them into some kind of vulnerable position where they're questioning a few things, like a bad breakup or a job loss or a major disease, present the snake oil, and they'll do whatever the hell you want. Poor people might fall into religion more easily than rich people just because they're not as educated or lack the skills and experience to discern truth, but the rich people who fall into it will fall extra hard and find it more difficult to get out. It's humiliating to be smart/educated and realize you've been deceived. Been there too. But better late than never, right?

[Vigile]

Thank goodness we live in a country where these assholes aren't allowed to throw us in jail for disbelief!

 

Nope, only for dissent.

[antix]

This was in the mid 80s. friend was civil service for the army missile command in huntsville alabama (electrical engineer). He went with 2 co-workers (Chuch of christ fundies) to visit a vendor and they went out to dinner with the vendor, My buddy and the vendor got rip roaring drunk and the next day at the facility the vendor tells my buddy, next time you come back don't bring those 2 assholes.

 

Another friend at goodyear reseach shared an office with this fundy jerk who had all sorts of religious tracts on his desk and a big Bible. Their boss was a xian also. The boss was fired for some reason and the new boss was not religious. Mr fundy put all the religious stuff away from view.