Factors behind negative reactions to religion

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I've been reading this thread: Why do christianity get so much hate?

... and thought some data would be illuminating.

Please feel free to expand on your answers in the thread below.

Edit: I realized that the question wording is a bit wonky. The idea is that you or the person you know was mistreated in the name of the religion of the person doing the mistreatment.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I'm unable to respond to the poll. I've never been mistreated by anyone of another religion, at least as it would pertain to their religion, nor has anyone I know personally.

Of course, there are varying degrees in how one may interpret "mistreatment."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm unable to respond to the poll. I've never been mistreated by anyone of another religion, at least as it would pertain to their religion, nor has anyone I know personally.

Of course, there are varying degrees in how one may interpret "mistreatment."

Sure. I purposely left it open-ended. I figured that anything that someone sees as "mistreatment" would probably correlate with a negative opinion. As long as each person is using their own consistent understanding of "mistreatment," the survey should be meaningful.

But for an example: the most prominent example of mistreatment that led me to vote for "Christians" in the poll was what happened to one of my childhood friends: when he came out as gay to his Christian parents, they refused to accept him and tormented him until he finally died by suicide.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Sure. I purposely left it open-ended. I figured that anything that someone sees as "mistreatment" would probably correlate with a negative opinion. As long as each person is using their own consistent understanding of "mistreatment," the survey should be meaningful.

But for an example: the most prominent example of mistreatment that led me to vote for "Christians" in the poll was what happened to one of my childhood friends: when he came out as gay to his Christian parents, they refused to accept him and tormented him until he finally died by suicide.

I would agree that's mistreatment.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum, "mistreatment" to someone else might be something as trivial as being told they're going to Hell for not believing in their god.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I would agree that's mistreatment.

But on the opposite end of the spectrum, "mistreatment" to someone else might be something as trivial as being told they're going to Hell for not believing in their god.

Sure.

But keep in mind that I meant for this thread to provide data for the other thread.

If that's where a person's bar is for mistreatment and only Christians have ever threatened them with Hell, then it would make sense why they would have a more negative opinion of Christianity than of other religions.

 

[JustGeorge]

I'm with @SalixIncendium here. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with religion.

I got bullied as a young person by Christians sometimes. They'd cover it by it being something religious, but it was really because of my clothes. Thankfully, such things aren't such a big deal anymore. It was tribalism. I didn't look like them. Seldom were they churchgoers. It was just an identity label. (Tribalism.)

I got bullied in my adult years by members of a local atheist group. This was the first time I'd come across a large group of atheists, and it made me sore towards them, but once I got away, I could see the problem wasn't atheism, it was just a local group with poor behavior. Atheism had nothing to do with it. Tribalism again.

 

[PureX]

Factors behind negative reactions to religion​

For most people I think the main factor is too many religious people using their religion as an excuse to mistreat others.

For me, personally, it was my not being willing to allow other people to try to control or dictate my thoughts or behaviors. Especially when they were clearly no better at thinking or behaving than I am.

I see no point in blaming any specific religion for this, though, as I suspect it's just a matter of which one we were associated with. Humans are human no matter what their religion.

 

[SalixIncendium]

But for an example: the most prominent example of mistreatment that led me to vote for "Christians" in the poll was what happened to one of my childhood friends: when he came out as gay to his Christian parents, they refused to accept him and tormented him until he finally died by suicide.

I would also wonder if these parents were bigots as a result of their religious beliefs or if they were bigots as a product of their experiences and weak disposition.

For example, I was raised by extremely racist parents. My brother remains quite racist, while I'm quite nonjudgmental. The bigotry has nothing to do with Catholicism and everything to do with experiences.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I voted "Christians," "Muslims," and "Jews," and if the poll had an option for atheists—or more specifically anti-religious and anti-theistic atheists—I would vote for that too.

I don't consider any of those experiences representative of any of the religions in whose name the mistreatment was done; only of an extreme subset thereof.

• I have known ex-Christians who have been abused and pressured by their families for being LGBT, not conforming to rigid expectations about going to church and marrying a fellow Christian, or not participating in religious rituals.

• I have known Muslims who have been shamed by other Muslims for being liberal (e.g., feminist, pro-LGBT, supportive of state secularism, etc.), and I have also known ex-Muslims who have been thrown out on the street, disowned, threatened with disownment, physically and verbally abused, prevented from going outside, and denied therapy, all due to their doubts about religion or due to being outed to their families. I also know an ex-Muslim who was forced into a marriage by her family after they had found out about her beliefs.

• I have known Palestinians, both Muslim and ex-Muslim ones, who have been threatened with violence and ones who have witnessed their family and friends either experience violence or be threatened with it at the hands of Zionist extremists in illegal settlements.

• Finally, I have also known Muslims and Christians who have been aggressively shunned and verbally abused by anti-religious atheists on the basis of religion.

I think any group of humans is bound to have a subset who mistreat others; some just use religious or anti-religious beliefs as their motive or excuse.

 

[Vinayaka]

Don't forget that this poll will be skewed by the number of interactions we collectively have with members of said religions. I've never interacted with a pagan, but have had tons of interactions with Christians and Hindus.

 

[libre]

Mistreated personally growing up in an Irish Catholic school in Canada.
Later in the public school system I went on to meet some Muslim girls who would wear the Hijab to school and swiftly remove them and place them in their lockers. One day a parent paid a surprise visit and it was the most public yelling match I've ever seen.

My extended family have much less tame stories as several are victims of sectarian violence in Ireland during The Troubles or the British government, but it's hard to conclude the actual motives for such.

I also know a Sikh woman who was a victim of an acid attack by a Hindu, but I believe it is more accurate to characterize as violence against women than a Religious hate-crime.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I also know a Sikh woman who was a victim of an acid attack by a Hindu, but I believe it is more accurate to characterize as violence against women than a Religious hate-crime.

This is the sort of thing I was alluding to in my previous post. An act of hate, discrimination, bigotry, etc., for whatever reason can easily misconstrued at a product of the perpetrator's religion.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Don't forget that this poll will be skewed by the number of interactions we collectively have with members of said religions. I've never interacted with a pagan, but have had tons of interactions with Christians and Hindus.

This reminds me of an analogy I read years ago about car accidents and nuclear-reactor failures: the latter are rare but far deadlier, but because the average person is frequently around cars and may use one themselves, our exposure to cars makes car accidents a bigger source of deaths annually than reactor failures.

I have no doubt that anyone who spends years in a society that has a specific predominant religion or ideology is bound to encounter more mistreatment in the name of that religion or ideology than in the name of other worldviews, primarily due to the increased exposure to it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Don't forget that this poll will be skewed by the number of interactions we collectively have with members of said religions. I've never interacted with a pagan, but have had tons of interactions with Christians and Hindus.

Sure. Feel free to scale the results by size of the religion if you want.

That being said, I think people will tend to give people they aren't familiar with a certain benefit of the doubt. If someone has never interacted with a particular religion - either because it's very small or because most of its adherents are on the other side of the world - then they're probably not going to have a negative view of that religion. OTOH, they'll be more confident having a negative view of a religion when they have negative interactions with members of that religion all the time.

 

[LuisDantas]

I don't feel confortable answering the pool, but I will point out that religions and pseudo-religions do teach values and attitudes and ought to be held accountable to how misguided those might turn out to be.

 

[Alien826]

My examples are concerning Christianity, but that's because it's the religion I have mainly interacted with.

One Sunday, when I lived in the south of the USA, a bar refused to sell me a beer before noon because it was a local law. I was very angry about it. I'll let this stand for all the examples of "blue" laws that have limited my participation in harmless activities. It may seem trivial, but adding it all up it's significant, I feel.

In the same time period, I met a nice young girl who attended high school with my then step-daughter. Her parents had moved from California and she was not particularly religious. Her life was made a misery by the Christian students who relentlessly tried to "save" her. She didn't convert, and was delighted when her parents moved back to California. The move was not connected to her treatment, I think her father may have had some kind to temporary contract or work assignment. My step-daughter did get converted later in college by one of those evangelical organizations that prey on College students. Since then, she has led a life totally ruled by extreme Christian views, home-schooling her children and so on. I don't think she can be said to be unhappy with all this, but her mother certainly has, with her access to the grand-children being severely limited because her Christianity doesn't match the "true Christianity". She was once told that she was "of the devil"!

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

... and thought some data would be illuminating.

Why? It seems to me that trolling for complaints is the least likely to illuminate.

Let me predict that Sikhs will get very few 'votes'. An even better showing might have been obtained has you included Shinto animists in you list of possible offenders. But, sadly, neither "Shinto animist" nor "none" were provided as poll options.

 

[Vinayaka]

This reminds me of an analogy I read years ago about car accidents and nuclear-reactor failures: the latter are rare but far deadlier, but because the average person is frequently around cars and may use one themselves, our exposure to cars makes car accidents a bigger source of deaths annually than reactor failures.

I have no doubt that anyone who spends years in a society that has a specific predominant religion or ideology is bound to encounter more mistreatment in the name of that religion or ideology than in the name of other worldviews, primarily due to the increased exposure to it.

Indeed. I live in Canada, not far at all from the notorious indigenous residential schools, run by Christians, and sponsored by the Canadian government. It's hard to know anyone indigenous who wasn't affected by that. And in substantial ways.

 

[Mock Turtle]

No complaints from me, apart from being essentially forced to sing and pray at school.

Other than this, I never have had any friends or those in regular contact who are/were religious or where such was an issue. Those who obviously did have a religion most likely not of the default culture in the UK I found much the same as any others and have had kindness from some of these where it was lacking elsewhere. But obviously I read the news and see the conflicts that tend to arise when people do have different religious beliefs. I try not to judge, but the Taliban certainly get a black mark for their abysmal treatment of females.

As I've said so often, my beliefs simply tend to arise from thinking - as to evidence or the lack of such - and not as to what religions might be or do. And even though I see this latter as a major issue for some of these religions I try not to judge them over such things, or place them into some top ten.

 

[Quintessence]

I can't vote in the poll either - it genuinely hasn't come up in my life. Partly because I would never assume someone's religion had anything to do with how they were treating me since I almost never know what someone's religion actually is. It isn't discussed. For the few exceptions I can think of, "mistreatment" just isn't how I would put it.