SL attraction to non-believers

Nice post Meilian. Being that I know very little about the Buddhist faith it is interesting to hear your perspective.

To clarify for you, my question had to do not only with the Christian God but all Gods. I would kinda lump athiests in with agnostics in one group and everyone else (maybe a few exceptions) in the other group.

That was extremely well said. Billy, ignore my previous answers. I'm in complete agreement with Meilian. The freedom in SL is definitely what keeps me here and appeals to the kind of person that I am. It's a very live and let live atmosphere (comparatively speaking) without forcing everyone to wear the school uniform (as an elf, ranger, cleric, <insert standard archetype here>. That's indredibly appealing to a free thinker.

I agree in part Chip. The same live and let live atmosphere is not what is experienced here as a Christian on these forums I am sad to say.

How I wish that were not true. It would be really nice to feel as you do but that is entirely a different issue.

Answer: very.

The subtle messages are everywhere: stamped on our money, in courthouses, in the pledge of allegiance. In smaller towns (like the one I grew up in) certain days of the week the town essentially shuts down because of church. I've also noticed a disturbing trend to tie in being patriotic as being a Christian. The President and his cabinet start the day off with prayer, legislation is being passed to try to include religion in our everyday lives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against religion for anyone but me. If you want to enjoy your beliefs you have every right to, but I shouldn't be subject to it on our money or in our laws.

I wish they'd remove "In God We Trust" from our money and place greater emphasis on "E Pluribus Unum" which is infinately more inclusive and representative.

hehe

I hate to keep doing this, Ulrika, but this really really needs some sort of substantiation.

Regardless of how many ignorant fools take up religion, I tink you need to prove your point. which seems to imply strongly that belief in God is only for the ignorant and easily controlled.

I wish you would realize how offensive it is for me to be bundled into a little group of people with a pretty "non-believer" label, and to be told that my little group is DISPROPORTIONATELY represented in SL, as in, "some/all of you should damn well leave", and that we need to come up with THEORIES to explain this MYSTERY!
Because, you know, it's not PERFECTLY NORMAL to be an atheist! It's something quite shocking that needs to be STUDIED and EXPLAINED!
I'm sure you didn't mean it as an attack, but IMHO it's a perfect demonstration of what's utterly fucked up about america and its bigoted christian bias.

I don't believe in god because I don't personally see the need for it. From my perspective religion and the belief in god is a tool used by people to get what they want or to pass their judgement on other people. I find religion to be the least compelling of all arguments. That is just how I personally define my beliefs.

As for the left and right brain people. I grew up in North Carolina where my elementary teachers approached my mother about restraining my left hand in order to force me to learn how to write with my right hand. Why would they want to do this? Because writing with your left hand was a sign of the devil.

My mother thought this was the most absurb thing she had ever heard of. Still, I went to school with other children who spent their days with their left hand tied to the desk so they could learn to write with their right hand.

Does that level of voodoo Christianity affect my current beliefs? Probably.

Weren't we taught to avoid talks on politics and religion because they can be hazardous to one's health?

First off, while I won't go nearly so far out on a limb as Eggy has, I dislike such a slanted question as "why don't people believe in God?" It expresses to me a kind of tunnel-vision when forming the question, but I'm not here to attack the thread starter. The question, however, is game.

Let's take Great Britain for example. Similar polls were conducted in the UK, and while the great majority again come off as Christian, you begin to see a steady dropoff of interest in religion.

Largely, I would say religion is cultural - and by virtue of history being taught by the victors, so has Christianity been the common culture. The dropoff of interest in the UK versus here, for example, marks a different social strata - so it makes sense.

As to Second Life, I will reserve my comments on how it "draws in nonbelievers," because right off the bat you're seeking to skew conversation. I would say, rather, that Second Life is more inclined to bring in free thinkers - and some freaks in their own right - due to its open-ended nature. If you feel that this is a bad thing and are out to change our ways, well... honestly you're more than welcome to try, and I'm more than happy to ignore any who decide to be a little overzealous when I politely tell them I am set in my ways.

After all, freedom of religion does not just mean freedom for the majority religion. Apparently we still have cultural hurdles to pass if this can still spawn a six-page thread.

PS: Stuff like this always makes it fun to live in Florida, doesn't it?

Of course, I can't speak for anything on that link save to say the "argument" is somehow hilarious to me, living well below where they all hit. Repair seasons later, and given I lived through Hurricane Andrew, I can't help but laugh.

I read the whole thread and it took mulling on it overnight to figure out what was bothering me. The title: SL attraction to non-believers. I think what Billy meant was SL attraction to athiests, but I've only heard believers, non-believers used in a Christian context... so glancing at the title gave me the impression he was saying SL attraction to non-Christians.

Which brings us back to the wording in polls. I write for a living. Language carries cultural and personal baggage and it takes particular skill to craft polls/surveys which accurately uncover the respondent's attitutudes. The usual method is to ask several questions, worded differently, which approach the desired info from different direction, clearing up exactly what the respondant means.

On a personal note, having grown up in the Bible Belt of the U.S. the term believer gives me hives. Makes me think hypocrite because that was my experience. I don't care much what you believe, but I care a great deal about what you DO... especially to me. Words are cheap.

Wow Eggy. I have to admit that I am somewhat mystified at how you got that from reading my thread starter. I am truly sorry if you are sincere in what you just said because your analysis is neither what I said or what I personally feel.

Maybe I could have used some words other than “non-believer” in getting across what my question was and if you were offended by that I am truly sorry. Please forgive me for my inability to come up with something that would be acceptable to you. Looking back, I am still unsure what words would have been acceptable to you. Maybe you could give me a suggestion or two.

It is an accepted fact that the vast majority of the people in at least the US, England and Canada would say that they believe is some form of God/god/higher power or whatever you wish to call it. It has been my experience here on these forums as well as at least Chip who admitted the same thing that there is a much higher percentage of people who have no such belief here in the forums than out in society as a whole. If that hypothesis is true, which I believe it is, then yes, there is a disproportionality in the representation of people with no such belief here. disproportionate simple means out of proportion. It is neither a negative connotation or a positive one. There is no emotion or stigma attached to its use here.

The shocking thing to me was only in reference to how many people there were here with no such belief. It is a fair question to ask opinions as to what it is about the SL forums that makes this happen. Maybe you don’t like the question Eggy. I am sorry about that. But there seem to be many people on both sides of the issue who do find it interesting and worthy of being discussed. After 82 posts in about 18 hours is evidence that it is a topic that people are interested in discussing. I am sorry that you are not one of them. Your opinions are welcome and I think that you might have some interesting insight to share with us all.

I have to ask you where this came from, “some/all of you should damn well leave”. I have gone back and re-read my thread starter and see nothing even similar to this. Anyone who knows me knows that what you accuse is not what I believe or even close to what I believe. My closest SL friends are diverse in their beliefs and I for one would be very sad if one day I logged in to find that my friends who believe something differently than me were gone. I love them as much as I love my Christian friends and make no distinction between them with regards to my fondness for them. Does it bother me that two of my closest SL friends do not share my religious beliefs and do I go around preaching to them in an attempt to convert them? No. You may ask Surreal and Ferran that for yourselves if you wish, I am quite sure they will tell you.

To set the record straight, I have no problem whatsoever with you or anyone else being an atheist. Is it what I personally believe? No. Is there “anything” shocking about you personally being an atheist? No. My shock had to do only with the disproportionality represented in this forum that is it. Does it need to be “studied and explained? No, that is not what we are doing here. We are simply discussing the topic to have a better understanding of each other. That is what the off-topic forum is for.

I will end in giving you my heartfelt apology if you or anyone else for that matter were offended by my words. I am sorry that you feel the way that you do but I hope that my clarifications above will at least give you a better understanding about not only what I personally think but also what I intended this discussion to be about. There is room for all of us here. One of the most wonderful things about SL, it’s unique diversity and the freedoms that the platform produces. I do look at you all as my SL family and treasure the friendships I have made here as much as my RL friendships. That is what keeps me coming back for more.

Jeffrey, I have a couple of comments. “Why don’t people believe in God’ is a good question indeed but it is not one that was posed on this thread. I am interested in hearing your views on the subject if you wish to discuss them but for fear that this thread will get off track I will not comment here. I am very sorry that you mistook my thread starter to mean that I wanted to discuss that issue. My apologies.


The question that I had has nothing to do with “free thinkers”. It has to do with believers or non-believers on God/god/a higher being or whatever you wish to call it. I apologize if using the words non-believers made you think that I was attempting to skew the conversation. That was not my intent at all.


I will stop you there… the makeup of these forums it isn’t a bad thing and I am not out to change your ways.


I couldn’t agree more and am unsure why you seem to think that I feel otherwise.


I find nothing about Hurricane Andrew even remotely funny. I will however have a different take on the other link. It is in no way, shape or form funny. I live in Florida and as a Christian, it sickens me to see trash like that. I am curious though as to how it pertains to this thread. I see no coloration.

So far I agree. I've seen as many believers vs. non-believers in SL as in RL but one differences is that many hide their belifes due to it not "fitting" in as part of SL.

Though SL has helped me find Jesus.... at Tringo.

-Blue

Thanks for clarifying what you meant at the start, Billy Grace I'm glad I wasn't too far off the mark.

Ryntha Suavage makes some very good points as well. I'm a little baffled at some of the responses between mine and hers; isn't it best to give others the benefit of the doubt as to their intentions, yet challenge them on an intellectual level? (Yes, that only works for those willing to respond on an intellectual level... but starting on an emotional level often is a poor choice, I think.)

I for one feel in no way proselytised towards here. I do see cultural biases (Juro Kuthari hits things on the nail, incidentally), but that's understandable. I try to work around those. Ultimately I think it is for the best.

Billy, you may have unfairly labeled some people here in the forums as 'unbelievers' when they disagree with YOUR idea of God? That could account for you thinking the forums are full of unbelievers.

Maybe they are unbelievers of God politics in the forums rather than God.

Yep, but it has nothing to do with one's health. We're taught that to stifle dissent.

It doesn't pertain to this thread. It's upon noticing your avatar line of "The Sunshine, errr.... Hurricane State," and pulling a random segue. Sometimes, we all have to laugh at horrible events in hindsight to downplay their impact, and the "God sends Hurricanes to Wreck Florida's Votes" is one of those (old) trains of thought that I find hilarious in their obvious, oversimplified-and-missing-the-point manner. If you find it sickening that people drawing those conclusions to the storms exist, perhaps it's time for a hearty laugh at their expense.

I think the root problem with starting a thread of this nature, though, is right off the bat you chose some "buzzwords" that aren't exactly conducive to constructive forum behavior. Well, that and it's the Second Life forums - a subset of the most vocal folks, as opposed to the whole, of Second Life. Either way, while I respect your opinion on the matter, I think that if people somehow "missed the point" of the question, that has a lot to do with how it's phrased and interpretted.

At any rate, I feel I must point to Ryntha's post as summing the best recourse to threads of this nature.

PROOF!!! Billy sees things only in black and white!

lol... ty for the chuckle at the expense of my horrible typing. You brightened my day Lianne!

Correlation... C… O… L… O… R… A… T… I… O… N… Correlation

I am happy that we have a meeting of the minds here Jeffrey. You may be right about how I worded the thread. Sometimes I have clear thoughts in my head that I inadequately translate to the written word. Hopefully with the clarification I have given there will no longer be a misunderstanding.

I am very sorry to hear of your childhood trauma. It saddens me what some people will do in the name of God making it hard on the majority of us who are good decent people. The same can be said of many other groups. TY so much for your kind words and support for this thread. I also have found what many of you have shared very interesting, informative and thought provoking.

Note of clarification in the event that someone reads too much into my words: I am in no way insinuating that Christians have the market for good, decent people.

YW Meilian, TY for your insightful words. I agree.

I don't believe SL exists; what category does that leave me in

Virtual nihilism?

I love Eggy!

~Ulrika~