I wanted to discuss spiritual and religious topic, and I tried and tried, but now with all the negative threads especially about Islam and Muslims, I have fully given up, I have no hope that it is possible to hold a serious religious discussion in RF anymore.
Hope people can respect my wish to not discuss about those topics anymore more.
My only focus from now in RF will be topics about art.
Well, I think you are correct by your descriptions of your experiences here, that you do not enjoy them and cannot get satisfaction through sharing your religious/spiritual views nor through the sharing of other's religious views. I am not aware of all you post but I do read some topics you start here and there. If you are getting the overall feeling that your experiences are more negative than positive, you probably should not indulge because it may be harmful to your ego or self, however you choose to look at the self.
People all have different views on religious topics. I do feel some sympathy towards religious people who want to spread their versions of gods or God or best gods, prophets, correct religious practices, etc.
However, now not only do these thousands of different religions and spiritual paths have to defend themselves and prove their Truth to other religions, they also have to now defend themselves from the rational skeptics.
That throws a whole new ball into the game. Up until 50 years ago or so (in this lagging country), skeptics and rational atheists were not known to the greater religious community. They were worse than the devil himself.
Never before that time were they exposed to such thoughts as that God(s) had no objective evidence of existence or that a God may not even actually exist.
The thoughts are probably as old as vocal humans but until recently those voices would be silenced by the faithful. In many cases death being the ultimate reward for questioning the existence of God.
Well here comes education, the sciences and the freedom of speech. The gaps are getting smaller and the voices getting harder to silence.
The religious who want to present their beliefs as true and factual, logical and the only way to THE TRUTH, the ideas that their religious teachings should be the moral and legal law of the land, must now clear an even higher bar in Westernized societies. I imagine it must make a lot of them feel bad about their position of power in the world.
They must also now deal with rational critical thinkers who are now allowed to speak as the religious always have had the right.
Makes for more questions about the truth of gods, evidence and the value of faith based thought than most religionists are prepared to consider.
So yes, if questions are too difficult or discussions with skeptics are too disturbing, there is either not participating in open debate forums by sticking to DIRs, or just not talking about religious ideas at all. It must be a hard choice. Good luck deciding.
