I came from a very religious catholic family. When I was in grade school, my dad suddenly changed his religion and it seemed like the rest of our family members (My grandma, his sibling etc.) "hated" him for that. They spent years witnessing how they argued about it. They even said that the reason why we are struggling financially was because of mY dad did, changing his religion. They stated he brought the family bad luck which in my opinion is below the belt and full of crap. I really hated them for that and even held it against them (and still I do).
Then when I was in HS, I became agnostic, I stopped going to church. Like what happened to my dad, they also told me that I reason why I keep failing things now (whether we're talking about a behind-the-wheel drive test or examinations) because I don't pray. I told them a million times that I pray. I even ask them why is it they act like they should see me praying just to make sure I'm really praying. Sometimes, praying is like a deep conversation, heart to heart talk between the person involved and God. It's not like we always have to pray together.
There was time one time when I failed a test, one of my uncles told me it's because I don't to church. I asked him why do they always think not going to church means not believing in God. He answered that I couldn't blame them if they think that way and went on and on comparing me to my "successful" cousin who's able to buy expensive things now. How do you guys deal with these kinds of people because honestly speaking, I kinda tired of explaining myself and POV them. Please give me sound advice what to tell them once this topic rise again in the future.
Proverbs 18:2 ~ Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions.
1 Corinthians 5:11 ~ But I now have written unto you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother if he is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. With such a one you are not even to eat.**
There are two types of people in this world: 1) Those who want you to agree with them 2) Those who want to have a conversation
Learn how to tell the difference. Don't waist your time with #1, even if they're you're own family. They just want you to shut up. Nothing you say will ever mean anything too them unless you tell them what they want to hear. They won't change.
If you consider yourself a Christian and wish to honor God to any degree, then do so by living the life he gave you with integrity and fulfill your family's desire for you to shut up by talking to someone else. Your family will have to live with themselves. If they wish to have a conversation, then they should learn to do so like a respectable adult without spouting BS.
** Your family, as you described, would be railers
Like others said, your family is full of crap. I'm semi religious myself but stuff happens, religion or not. My uncle currently refuses to pray because his brother died of cancer recently. God didn't do that nor did he help i guess but that's science and genes. Cancer even effects young children that don't understand the idea of sin. just one example of how grief affects you.
warning: the person posting this thinks that the majority of religions in this world are diseases. They also detest people who try to force ideology onto others (religious people promoting their religion and family forcing it into you), they've been through some sht situations like that. There may be some bias against religions.
Move to Japan, they banned Christianity once so the influence of Christianity there is next to non existent. In my eyes, any religion is just another ideology created by humans use as a tool for creating their ideal society, it's pretty much people trying to persuade others to think and see things their way. It's happened countless times in history where some religion became successful because they suited the needs of whoever advertised that religion. Perhaps religions only die when they're not needed by anyone anymore, or when all the believers of a religion have died off. Sadly Christianity is still a big one so it'll take a while for it to become "just a myth".
Religions are tools and as long as it's useful somehow to some person, it'll be kept. There have been instances where religions were used to sway its believers into doing something "for the [input religious symbol here]". Convince a few ignorant peasants that they'll receive what they want from some divine power and tada, you have an ideal society that suits the needs of probably only a few people. Say you were a king in an era of war, you need troops but how do you get people to fight for you with the risk of losing their lives? You can pay to train a ton of soldiers, or you can advocate a religion with ideology that suits your needs and gives empty uncertain promises to its target audience, promises that the ignorant and unaware people at the time can depend on (cuz education was for the rich and peasants got no moneys). So when you want to get a bunch of people to go to war or go on suicide missions without regards for their own lives, it's easier to persuade them to do so if they've already planted some ideology in their heads that what they're doing is good for them.
Your relatives have integrated whatever religious ideology they follow into their minds. To an extent, humans choose what they want to see. If your relatives want to see your failures as a punishment for not agreeing with their ideology, then you can't really do anything about it. For your relatives, your explanations are pretty much a game of pictionary in the dark. Try as hard as you can to draw up an explanation but the room is dark, your relatives can't what you're drawing, and they don't want to turn the lights on.
If I had any advice for you, it'd be to give up and just put up with it until your relatives are tired bugging you, or try to have as little contact as you can with them as you can.
The only religion I believe in its human decency. It's pretty vague, but it goes like this: Do shtty things and I'll hate you. Do nothing that destroys my peaceful life and I can tolerate your existence. If I like you and you like me and we are both agreeable to each other, we can be friends.
Just to make things clear, I do believe that there's some divine or spiritual being that's playing with our lives, possibly just watching or controlling our fates and judging us. What I don't believe in are the majority of religions, their believers (some of them make me want to hate the religion that made such appalling people), and any part of an ideology that inhibits my ideological freedom. In fact, those are what I hate. Not the religion itself, to me it's just another set of ideology. It might clash with my own, but it's a way of thinking and I'll respect it by leaving it alone. I'll think whatever I want to think and do whatever I think is the "correct" choice.
figure out exactly what you believe. You can take many years to do this if you like, but doing so will set you on a spiritual journey of exploration, and exploration has a strange way of protecting an explorer. Check out lots of religions and philosophies. You really don't have a choice here. Your family is saying things that hurt you, and the only way out of that hurt is to become strong in knowing what you think and feel about the spiritual aspects of life. I tell people, "because I don't believe that way, and I won't be a hypocrite." It usually shuts them up because their Catholic guilt tells them that hypocrisy is a sin. The good thing about being raised in strict Catholicism is that it gives you a strong spiritual framework, after that, you'll be like, "thank you very much for the foundation. I can take it from here."
I am a Roman Catholic, and I think I get where your relatives are coming from, because I believe that going to church is essential and sacred and should not be thought of merely as an obligation; one way of strengthening your relationship to God is going to church.
BUT.
I do not condone how they act and how they speak to you with regards to that matter. It is true that if you belong to a religion, you need to abide by the rules; but it doesn't excuse someone to act rudely and treat other people as shit just because they don't see eye-to-eye. Honestly, I really hate those "religious" people who shove their beliefs down someone's throat and condemn them if they don't do the way "they're supposed to do." It is only God who has the right to judge us. I hate them because they shed a bad light on the whole religion and people will think badly of us. That saying, I can't really tell how you can change their opinions if they're so hell-bent on them; but what I can say to you, is that if you think that you aren't doing anything bad, and you aren't disrespecting someone, then please continue what you do, by all means. Just ignore them because if you succumb to their wishes, then you won't be happy either. Let God decide their fate.
In my eyes, the Bible is a book. It is simply a book. It may have to do with the time period it was idolized and became what it is today. With it being a book, there are HUNDREDS of books with an item of worship in some of them. Religious people say that God exists because of the Bible. Well, so does Edward Cullen, Katnis Everdeen (I am not sure how to spell that) and many other fictional characters. God or Jesus is the "Hero" and Satan, Lucifer, and whatever is considered a no no, is the "Villian" Thats how I look at religion. Me personally, I dont believe in anything. I just think that humans existed no mater what and our circumstances are just created. If there was a God, then this entity could have helped us with famine, war, and any other disaster that ever existed. And why are they silent after all this time? This is all what I think, what you do with it is yours to do.
Messages
Don't bother.
Proverbs 18:2 ~ Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions.
1 Corinthians 5:11 ~ But I now have written unto you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother if he is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. With such a one you are not even to eat.**
There are two types of people in this world:
1) Those who want you to agree with them
2) Those who want to have a conversation
Learn how to tell the difference. Don't waist your time with #1, even if they're you're own family. They just want you to shut up. Nothing you say will ever mean anything too them unless you tell them what they want to hear. They won't change.
If you consider yourself a Christian and wish to honor God to any degree, then do so by living the life he gave you with integrity and fulfill your family's desire for you to shut up by talking to someone else. Your family will have to live with themselves. If they wish to have a conversation, then they should learn to do so like a respectable adult without spouting BS.
** Your family, as you described, would be railers
Like others said, your family is full of crap. I'm semi religious myself but stuff happens, religion or not. My uncle currently refuses to pray because his brother died of cancer recently. God didn't do that nor did he help i guess but that's science and genes. Cancer even effects young children that don't understand the idea of sin. just one example of how grief affects you.
warning: the person posting this thinks that the majority of religions in this world are diseases. They also detest people who try to force ideology onto others (religious people promoting their religion and family forcing it into you), they've been through some sht situations like that. There may be some bias against religions.
Move to Japan, they banned Christianity once so the influence of Christianity there is next to non existent. In my eyes, any religion is just another ideology created by humans use as a tool for creating their ideal society, it's pretty much people trying to persuade others to think and see things their way. It's happened countless times in history where some religion became successful because they suited the needs of whoever advertised that religion. Perhaps religions only die when they're not needed by anyone anymore, or when all the believers of a religion have died off. Sadly Christianity is still a big one so it'll take a while for it to become "just a myth".
Religions are tools and as long as it's useful somehow to some person, it'll be kept. There have been instances where religions were used to sway its believers into doing something "for the [input religious symbol here]". Convince a few ignorant peasants that they'll receive what they want from some divine power and tada, you have an ideal society that suits the needs of probably only a few people. Say you were a king in an era of war, you need troops but how do you get people to fight for you with the risk of losing their lives? You can pay to train a ton of soldiers, or you can advocate a religion with ideology that suits your needs and gives empty uncertain promises to its target audience, promises that the ignorant and unaware people at the time can depend on (cuz education was for the rich and peasants got no moneys). So when you want to get a bunch of people to go to war or go on suicide missions without regards for their own lives, it's easier to persuade them to do so if they've already planted some ideology in their heads that what they're doing is good for them.
Your relatives have integrated whatever religious ideology they follow into their minds. To an extent, humans choose what they want to see. If your relatives want to see your failures as a punishment for not agreeing with their ideology, then you can't really do anything about it. For your relatives, your explanations are pretty much a game of pictionary in the dark. Try as hard as you can to draw up an explanation but the room is dark, your relatives can't what you're drawing, and they don't want to turn the lights on.
If I had any advice for you, it'd be to give up and just put up with it until your relatives are tired bugging you, or try to have as little contact as you can with them as you can.
The only religion I believe in its human decency. It's pretty vague, but it goes like this: Do shtty things and I'll hate you. Do nothing that destroys my peaceful life and I can tolerate your existence. If I like you and you like me and we are both agreeable to each other, we can be friends.
Just to make things clear, I do believe that there's some divine or spiritual being that's playing with our lives, possibly just watching or controlling our fates and judging us. What I don't believe in are the majority of religions, their believers (some of them make me want to hate the religion that made such appalling people), and any part of an ideology that inhibits my ideological freedom. In fact, those are what I hate. Not the religion itself, to me it's just another set of ideology. It might clash with my own, but it's a way of thinking and I'll respect it by leaving it alone. I'll think whatever I want to think and do whatever I think is the "correct" choice.
figure out exactly what you believe. You can take many years to do this if you like, but doing so will set you on a spiritual journey of exploration, and exploration has a strange way of protecting an explorer. Check out lots of religions and philosophies. You really don't have a choice here. Your family is saying things that hurt you, and the only way out of that hurt is to become strong in knowing what you think and feel about the spiritual aspects of life. I tell people, "because I don't believe that way, and I won't be a hypocrite." It usually shuts them up because their Catholic guilt tells them that hypocrisy is a sin. The good thing about being raised in strict Catholicism is that it gives you a strong spiritual framework, after that, you'll be like, "thank you very much for the foundation. I can take it from here."
Because they think Christianity is the only good religion and think everyone else is an evil atheist like in a PureFlix movie.
I am a Roman Catholic, and I think I get where your relatives are coming from, because I believe that going to church is essential and sacred and should not be thought of merely as an obligation; one way of strengthening your relationship to God is going to church.
BUT.
I do not condone how they act and how they speak to you with regards to that matter. It is true that if you belong to a religion, you need to abide by the rules; but it doesn't excuse someone to act rudely and treat other people as shit just because they don't see eye-to-eye. Honestly, I really hate those "religious" people who shove their beliefs down someone's throat and condemn them if they don't do the way "they're supposed to do." It is only God who has the right to judge us. I hate them because they shed a bad light on the whole religion and people will think badly of us. That saying, I can't really tell how you can change their opinions if they're so hell-bent on them; but what I can say to you, is that if you think that you aren't doing anything bad, and you aren't disrespecting someone, then please continue what you do, by all means. Just ignore them because if you succumb to their wishes, then you won't be happy either. Let God decide their fate.
God bless.
In my eyes, the Bible is a book. It is simply a book. It may have to do with the time period it was idolized and became what it is today. With it being a book, there are HUNDREDS of books with an item of worship in some of them. Religious people say that God exists because of the Bible. Well, so does Edward Cullen, Katnis Everdeen (I am not sure how to spell that) and many other fictional characters. God or Jesus is the "Hero" and Satan, Lucifer, and whatever is considered a no no, is the "Villian" Thats how I look at religion. Me personally, I dont believe in anything. I just think that humans existed no mater what and our circumstances are just created. If there was a God, then this entity could have helped us with famine, war, and any other disaster that ever existed. And why are they silent after all this time? This is all what I think, what you do with it is yours to do.