Things that make you lose faith in humanity

[Neo-Logic]

Little kids and children in general reaffirm my faith in humanity. To see the amount of potential, goodness, and happiness that most of us either start off with or are capable of always ground me.

 

[Kathryn]

Well, I have never had "faith in humanity" but if I HAD, the history of the 20th century would have annihilated it.

Then again, there's nothing new under the sun.

This doesn't mean that I don't love humanity, or feel less of a personal responsibility to help better humanity. It just means that I don't have FAITH in any sort of innate "goodness" in humanity - or faith in any sort of ability for humans to save themselves from the ramifications of their actions or nature.

My faith resides in a Power outside of humanity.

 

[monta]

Well, I have never had "faith in humanity" but if I HAD, the history of the 20th century would have annihilated it.

.

Thats a bit sad :sad:

We've done some pretty ****ty stuff I will grant you that , but we have done some amzing things too, and it is in our nature to go along with the pack and yet every now and then some one breaks free of this societal imperative and does something extraodinary.

 

[cardero]

Little kids and children in general reaffirm my faith in humanity. To see the amount of potential, goodness, and happiness that most of us either start off with or are capable of always ground me.

Me too until I get to know the parents.

 

[Kathryn]

Thats a bit sad :sad:

We've done some pretty ****ty stuff I will grant you that , but we have done some amzing things too, and it is in our nature to go along with the pack and yet every now and then some one breaks free of this societal imperative and does something extraodinary.

I realize that humans are capable of doing extraordinary things, and I realize that there are people who exhibit some amazing character traits, but my point is that the source and inspiration for my faith lies elsewhere.

But don't worry - I'm not sad!

 

[JMorris]

1. What made you lose faith in humanity?

humanity

 

[T-Dawg]

I am also actually scared that I will not be hired as a teacher when the time comes if the people hiring know that I am an atheist. Then there is this whole business where gay people cannot be married in most places in the states.

I would not worry about not being hired. Not only is it illegal to refuse to hire someone simply because of their religion (personally I think it should be in careers that involve people or actions that conflict religion, ie, a Christian shouldn't be working in an abortion clinic, an atheist shouldn't be a pastor, etc), by the time you will be a teacher (I'm assuming you're in your late teens), atheists will be a vast majority of America if they are not already (they ARE a strong majority if you count the hypocrite Christians who can't even tell you what their religion teaches as "atheists"). People in America are getting to the point where they care more about material things than religion. That among many things makes me lose faith in humanity.
As for gay marriage, might I ask why gays want to get married in the first place? I can never figure it out. Since all the religions that I can think of that require a "traditional" marriage ceremony to "officially" bind a couple together are also anti-homosexual, why do homosexuals feel the need to go through the entire marriage ritual in the first place? Are there legal benefits to being married, ie, tax reductions, healthcare benefits, etc? There should not be. If you really want to separate church and state (personally I don't see any place besides propagandanizing the masses and the marriage ceremonies I just got through talking about where church and state are still together, but meh), try separating marriage and government as a start.

I would say that the following makes me lose faith in humanity:
1.) When an atheist refuses God simply because (s)he does not want to put forth the effort into living a moral code. Yes, I have actually seen atheists who remain atheists for this reason.
2.) When atheists (usually in real life, I notice that the ones I meet in real life are signifigantly dumber than the ones I meet online) got in my face and and tried to tell me that I'm believing in a "santa claus story." I found that particularly offensive, because santa as we know him today was made up by greedy capitalist scumbags (the Coca Cola company to be exact, if I remember correctly) in order to help distract children from the true meaning of Christmas (well actually their purpose was to sell things, but they tore apart the religious meaning of Christmas while they were at it).
3.) When someone thinks their material possessions are somehow more important than their spiritual life (not just atheists, I have literally seen "Christians" who are obsessed with material things and looked at you like you were crazy when you got into even a mild religious discussion).
4.) When people (who don't believe in any religion) blame all of their problems on religion (which they often know nothing about). Believe it or not, sometimes secular problems have secular causes (ie, the recession being caused by a crisis in the housing industry, which was caused by speculators putting loads of money into it, along with banks giving out loans to people who couldn't pay them so they could buy houses. Nowhere in there do I see religion, so why bring it up?).
5.) When "religious" people blame all of their problems on atheists simply because they don't believe in a god. It generally scars the atheist for life and prevents him from listening to a religious person who actually knows what he's talking about.
6.) When anyone blames their own stupidity on another person (ie, democrats love to pin everything on Bush, while republicans blame all of our problems on Clinton).
7.) When people elect a president believing that he can somehow solve all of their problems simply because he says so or because he belongs to a certain political party (ie, Obama), and then those people just sit and do nothing expecting the president to wave a magic wand and save the country. A country is empowered by it's PEOPLE, not some guy who can talk well and yell loud.
8.) When people vaunt democracy as the only viable government. If you actually look at the US today, you'll find that democracy inevitably leads to complacency, and then to fascism. The people are first ecstatic that they actually have a part in the government (or at least I assume they were, seeing that they fought a war for it...). The next century's people are also concerned with their liberty, but at the same time refusing to give liberty to others, eventually leading to the civil war. After that, they STILL refused to give african americans freedom, and capitalism still had free reign. People began to think more about their pockets than their country. Then came World War I. Despite causing a lot of death, it brought good social changes to America - with the men at war, the women manned the factories, and eventually started demanding voting rights. This was good. After World War I ended, America was the economic leader of the world. At about that time, some complete idiot (or perhaps a canniving capitalist that knew how to predict economic changes) came up with the idea that people should be able to buy things without having to save for them. Hence "credit" was born (I just can never get over how "credit" was invented shortly before the Great Depression... either way, it's a stroke of stupidity for people to spend more money than they have). Not too long after that, the stock market crashed, quite similarly to how the housing market crashed recently actually - people kept putting money in and investing, thinking the prices would just go up and up... and eventually people stopped buying. The prices plummeted, and the investments became worthless. How that hurt people other than the stock investors, I don't remember (there was a reason that the Depression spread outside Wall Street), but it was a turning point in American history. Capitalism failed on a large scale. Anyways, after that came World War II. Notice that Germany was forced to become a republic ("democracy," as Americans call it) after WW1. The Germans weren't used to the whole idea of making their own decisions. Contrary to popular belief, some people actually like the idea of a king ruling over them. As a result (this was not the only cause by a long shot, but I don't have time to go into everything that caused Hitler's success XD), Hitler was elected Chancellor and got away with passing laws that gave him dictator powers (eerily similar to the Patriot Act, to be honest... Hitler was to "temporarily" take dictator powers in case of a "national emergency," and Bush started spying on phone/email conversations and started wars in case of a "terrorist attack."). Anyways, some time after WW2, the african americans finally got equal rights with white men according to law (they're still treated poorly by many people, regardless of the law). But more than that, there were cultural changes. People started becoming more secular, and capitalism was thriving again. The American morality started to decay as a result. I'm not quite sure when it first became prevalent, but at some point, people stopped listening to common sense, and started listening to their favorite political figure. Perhaps most notably, there was a great fear of communism. Americans went out of their way to make sure no one became communist, even going so far as to fund guerillas fighting against the elected marxist governments in certain countries (ie, Nicargua, Vietnam, and I think Korea was one of them...). This was an example of fearmongering by politicians to get the populace to do their will. Fortunately, that all ended in the 1980s, but they came up with a new fearmongering object (terrorists) anyways. Now, we see that in the name of defending against terrorism, Bush has passed the Patriot Act. Why did the people not go insane at this? Because they're trained to obey the government, whereas in the design of what America is supposed to be, the people ARE part of the government. A lack of education in the world (or perhaps an overflow of information to be known, seeing that things are a heck of a lot more active and busy than they were a century ago) has caused the people to follow their political leaders like sheep, making the People tools for power-hungry elitists, where they should have been the backbone of the country.
Now, why did I give you a rough sketch of American history? Er, I'm not sure, actually... I think I was trying to demonstrate how Americans have given over their political power to elite groups over history.
9.) When people think that money will solve all of their problems, and when people constantly want more and more money. In reality, money doesn't do much when everyone is greedy. I think I've given this speech before, but anyways... when EVERYONE wants MORE and MORE money, they start to demand MORE and MORE money for LESS and LESS labor/resources. In other words, people want more money for less effort. This results in a lower supply of labor, which is bad.

Ok, my post is long enough, I stop here for now I guess.

 

[Father Heathen]

People who sexually or physically abuse/assault women and children, those who would cover such incidences up, make excuses for them or try to justify them, and those who would blame the victim. Same applies to those would would abuse and torture helpless animals, especially the companion species that display trust, loyalty, love and affection.
Those who wallow in willful ignorance, denial, self deceit and intellectual dishonesty, those who would allow their prejudices, misconceptions and preconceived notions to dictate their thoughts and feelings, and those who refuse to learn and change, stubbornly sticking to the path regardless of the consequences.
Those who's egos lead them to live and behave in a shallow, pretentious, superficial, materialistic, selfish and arrogant manner, and a media/society that portrays them as desirable and attractive traits. This also includes misogyny and the objectifying of women, and the women who actually tolerate and reinforce such attitudes.
Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...

 

[DallasApple]

I have faith in humanity because most people I know are more good than bad.It depends on how they have been conditioned what % of that is higher and what the circumstances are .

Most people arent sociapaths and most have some empathy.I will never lose faith that it cant be developed and we cant have "heaven on earth" someday.THY kingdom com thy will be done ..on EARTH as it is in heaven means its possible or its at least a goal.

Love

Dallas

 

[T-Dawg]

Most people arent sociapaths and most have some empathy.

Completely incorrect. Most people ARE sociapaths, and most have NO empathy whatsoever. We're talking about HUMANS here. Humans are inherently evil and humanity only exists to tear itself apart so all the other animals can watch them and laugh.

I will never lose faith that it cant be developed and we cant have "heaven on earth" someday.THY kingdom com thy will be done ..on EARTH as it is in heaven means its possible or its at least a goal.

Heaven on earth requires that 100% of the people follow God. This will NEVER happen. Both common sense and the Bible acknowledge that Christianity is dying and constantly persecuted (and always will be). What you can expect is Hell on earth. It is not only possible that The Evil will overrun earth, but absolutely CERTAIN if you go by the Bible. I personally am convinced that all humanity will have been assimilated by The Evil, and that Christianity (and probably all other religions that have a moral code) will not even be in the people's memories by the time the Revelation comes around (the 144000 are likely the total sum of true Christians gathered up throughout all history. It seems like an overly optimistic estimate, but the Bible says that there will be 144000 who have God's name written on their forehead and who were redeemed from the earth... that is, to be taken from the grave, if I'm interpreting it correctly).

 

[Yerda]

Completely incorrect. Most people ARE sociapaths, and most have NO empathy whatsoever. We're talking about HUMANS here. Humans are inherently evil and humanity only exists to tear itself apart so all the other animals can watch them and laugh.

I happen to know a couple of humans. Quite nice people. Every one I've ever met had some degree of empathy (even the unpleasant ones), especially towards those they seemed to regard as like themselves.

 

[T-Dawg]

I happen to know a few humans too. One ripped apart my heart in middle school and continued to hunt me down in high school, two in particular went out of their way to make sure they constantly made fun of my religion and me for following it, one who made fun of me for being depressed, and another girl who led me on to believe that I had a chance with her and then ripped apart what was left of my heart in high school.

My conclusion? Obviously, we've talked to different humans.

especially towards those they seemed to regard as like themselves.

Yes. Humans love those like themselves, and hate those who are different. The more difference, the more likely there is to be conflict. One of the things I learned from school all these years.

 

[Zephyr]

There are a lot of people I would personally string up and gut if it were legal or I could get away with it. I'm not usually a violent person, so that's saying a lot.

Then again, man did invent gin, so that's gotta count for something.

 

[Lisa S]

I would say that the following makes me lose faith in humanity:
1.) When an atheist refuses God simply because (s)he does not want to put forth the effort into living a moral code. Yes, I have actually seen atheists who remain atheists for this reason.

What compete ********.

Based on the number of times I have heard Christians spew this garbage, I'm left with no other conclusion than: many Christians are deeply immoral people who are only prevented from committing heinous crimes by fear of the invisible cop in the sky.

 

[T-Dawg]

Based on the number of times I have heard Christians spew this garbage, I'm left with no other conclusion than: many Christians are deeply immoral people who are only prevented from committing heinous crimes by fear of the invisible cop in the sky.

What garbage? I said that I do not like atheists who are only atheists because they do not want to put forth the effort into living a moral code (in other words, they don't want to bother with being a "good" person, they're perfectly content being able to lie, steal, fornicate, etc whenever they want to, and that's the only reason they don't join a religion). And don't say that is garbage, for most of the atheists I meet in real life are that kind (real life people tend to be signifigantly dumber than people I meet on the internet). There are plenty of atheists who are atheists for decent reasons, like being turned off by the hypocrisy of Christianity, not being able to see the idea of supernatural as compatible with common sense, etc, and I can respect them.

 

[monta]

What garbage? I said that I do not like atheists who are only atheists because they do not want to put forth the effort into living a moral code (in other words, they don't want to bother with being a "good" person, they're perfectly content being able to lie, steal, fornicate, etc whenever they want to, and that's the only reason they don't join a religion). And don't say that is garbage, for most of the atheists I meet in real life are that kind (real life people tend to be signifigantly dumber than people I meet on the internet). There are plenty of atheists who are atheists for decent reasons, like being turned off by the hypocrisy of Christianity, not being able to see the idea of supernatural as compatible with common sense, etc, and I can respect them.

Why confine your distaste for only atheists who lie, steal and fornicate whenever they want, or if you don't what useful purpose is there is singling out atheists in this diatribe.

Some in the US seem to find the concept of atheism as a rejection of core Christian values and therefore an embracement of the antithesis of those values must follow, this is not typically the case.

 

[T-Dawg]

Why confine your distaste for only atheists who lie, steal and fornicate whenever they want, or if you don't what useful purpose is there is singling out atheists in this diatribe.

The point I was trying to convey was that I find it distasteful to reject a belief system merely because you don't want to put forth the effort into living by a moral code. An example besides atheism and Christianity would be, say, a Christian that was thinking of converting to Islam, but then decided not to simply because they didn't want to have to pray 5 times a day (or some other ritual of that sort). Gah, I always have such difficulty expressing the simplest of concepts... =/

Some in the US seem to find the concept of atheism as a rejection of core Christian values and therefore an embracement of the antithesis of those values must follow, this is not typically the case.

It isn't typically in the world at large, but it seems to be where I live. I live in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone claims that they're Christian (most, however, can't even tell you what Christianity actually is besides "being a good person and going to church" - I usually count those as atheists), and the only ones who go out of their way to show themselves as atheists usually do embrace the antithesis of Christian values.

 

[Nepenthe]

It isn't typically in the world at large, but it seems to be where I live. I live in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone claims that they're Christian (most, however, can't even tell you what Christianity actually is besides "being a good person and going to church" - I usually count those as atheists)...

No True Scotsmen much?

and the only ones who go out of their way to show themselves as atheists usually do embrace the antithesis of Christian values.

Which Christian values would that be?

 

[monta]

It isn't typically in the world at large, but it seems to be where I live. I live in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone claims that they're Christian (most, however, can't even tell you what Christianity actually is besides "being a good person and going to church" - I usually count those as atheists), and the only ones who go out of their way to show themselves as atheists usually do embrace the antithesis of Christian values.

It is starting to look like you are confusing the concept of atheism with the concept of not believing and acting in a way that you personally find acceptable.

An atheist is a person who doesn't believe in the existence of a god.

 

[T-Dawg]

No True Scotsmen much?

Never heard of that, I'll check out the link.

Which Christian values would that be?

Come to think of it, I'm not sure =O. I was a friend with an atheist in high school, actually, and he was an ok guy. Had some interesting conversations with him.
I notice that he was definitely more sexually active than any Christian I've ever seen (his first sexual encouter was at 6 years old according to him), that he was a bit of a slacker (no interest in actually doing his homework or taking notes), and little things like that.
Besides him, though, most atheists I met were total jerks, and hence I never really got to know them too well. (For example, there was one girl I remember from middle school who got in my face and told me I believed in a "santa claus story." Which was of course taken as an insult, since santa is an anti-Christian false god invented by capitalism to encourage children to be materialistic.)

I'm not quite sure what morals atheists break, I just know from what I hear them saying that they don't care for morals .

An atheist is a person who doesn't believe in the existence of a god.

Not in the vocabulary where I come from XD. Besides that, is there any other word that basically sums up the anti-religious and anti-moral in one group?

EDIT: Ok, I read the wikipedia article. I don't see where your "No true scotsman" thing comes from. Are you trying to say that anyone who says he's a Christian automatically is, even if he doesn't understand the basic fundamental beliefs of the religion?

In situations where the subject's status is previously determined by specific behaviors, the fallacy does not apply. For example, it is perfectly justified to say, "No true vegetarian eats meat," because not eating meat is the single thing that precisely defines a person as a vegetarian.