What have you learned.....

S

Simon Anders

Valued Senior Member
from you participation in the Religion Forum?

I realize this will be seen as a straight line for some. Responses like

___________ are idiots.

Are not really specific enough, and, probably, you already believed such things before you came here.

So.....

What have you learned?
Have you improved self-knowledge? if so, how?
Knowledge of others? if so, what? (for example, at least)
Have you improved a skill? (debating, logical analysis.....) If so, what and how?
Have you gathered new information? insight?

Has it been worth the effort?

If you did not come here to learn, what did you come here to do?
Has this been worth the effort?
 
Enmos said:
Humans are idiots.

But I already knew that, you're right :p
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So...
was there anything else.

You have posted 2981 times in the Religion Forum. I assume you have read at least as many posts that others have written, perhaps quite a few times more.

If this is what you learned, has it been worth your time?
If you have other goals or satisfactions, what are they? Have they been worth your time?

But even if your goals were not to learn, that was quite a bit of investment of mental focus, not to have learned more.....or?
 
I couldn't possibly begin to quantify all I have learned here.
Of my over 11,000 posts over the past nearly 6 years; I'd guess well more than half have been in the Religion/Philosophy Subforums, and I have learned a great deal.
Futhermore, it has played a huge role in my spiritual path and growth.
What I have not learned directly from this site and members I have been inspired to learn and research on my own.
I owe more to this site, directly and indirectly, than to any other single source for my spiritual growth and maturation with the one possible exception of the Pali Canon and Thanissaro Bhikkhu's translations and interpretations of it.

Suffice it to say, I am greatly and forvever indebted to Sciforums and her members.
 
I've learned that the less you know about athiests the more you'll like them. I used to have no opinion on athiests when I came here. Now I find I care very less for any of their opinions or ideas. They've prejudiced me against athiests I haven't even met. Its very sad. :(

I've found other people [non-athiests] to be pretty much what I have always known them to be. I've learned a lot about many religions which has always fascinated me and delved a lot deeper into Islam, which I find even more closely aligned with my philosophy than it was before I came here.
 
According to my search, I have 3,573 posts in the Philosophy Subforms.
Not sure how accurate that is.
Regardless, everything else I said stands.
 
one_raven said:
I couldn't possibly begin to quantify all I have learned here.
Of my over 11,000 posts over the past nearly 6 years; I'd guess well more than half have been in the Religion/Philosophy Subforums, and I have learned a great deal.
Futhermore, it has played a huge role in my spiritual path and growth.
What I have not learned directly from this site and members I have been inspired to learn and research on my own.
I owe more to this site, directly and indirectly, than to any other single source for my spiritual growth and maturation with the one possible exception of the Pali Canon and Thanissaro Bhikkhu's translations and interpretations of it.

Suffice it to say, I am greatly and forvever indebted to Sciforums and her members.
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Could you perhaps pick out one 'thing' or area of knowledge you learned here and how it came about? Preferably something of importance to you.

I realize this is not something that is always easy to track.

Thanks.
 
S.A.M. said:
I've learned that the less you know about athiests the more you'll like them. I used to have no opinion on athiests when I came here. Now I find I care very less for any of their opinions or ideas. They've prejudiced me against athiests I haven't even met. Its very sad. :(

I've found other people [non-athiests] to be pretty much what I have always known them to be. I've learned a lot about many religions which has always fascinated me and delved a lot deeper into Islam, which I find even more closely aligned with my philosophy than it was before I came here.
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I come up with 5182 posts (and counting) for you here SAM.
Could you be a little more specific in your descriptions?
Has it been worth it?
 
Simon Anders said:
Could you perhaps pick out one 'thing' or area of knowledge you learned here and how it came about? Preferably something of importance to you.
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Not really, no.
I suppose just general knowledge, really.
I have learned a great deal more than I knew about other religions and belief systems - and I have been studying religions since I was about 9 years old (I am 37 now).
 
Simon Anders said:
I come up with 5182 posts (and counting) for you here SAM.
Could you be a little more specific in your descriptions?
Has it been worth it?
Click to expand...

As a learning experience? Of course. When I first came here, the athiests would follow me about, quoting bits and pieces from the Hadith and Quran which they got from anti-Islam sites. Every other thread in Religion would be about the "Muslim terrorist" or the "pedophile Prophet". I would be asked for an opinion on what every Muslim on earth had possibly said or done, expected to take a stand against "terrorism", apologise for what someone had done in Sudan or Saudi Arabia and asked to explain every alleged action of the Prophet. It was quite overwhelming for me, I came from cultures [in India and the Middle East] where people were usually gracious and polite when they asked about religion, not rabid and insulting. Most people assumed that I had never thought about my beliefs and had been indoctrinated into them through a process which they termed as "abuse".

Complaints to moderators were ineffectual and most of the time I was left feeling as if I was the one who had done something wrong simply by professing to a faith. I tried to answer all questions in detail, going through references and examining my beliefs honestly for a long time, before I realised that no one was really interested in a discussion, merely in mocking or putting me down.

After being explained that mockery was the ideal medium for learning "critical thinking in religion", I started mocking their beliefs. Then they got very upset and called me a rigid fundamentalist with extremist views. So, I realised that all the "critical thinking" was a sham [which I realised pretty early on, btw]. However, it seems that this new improved critical thinking [mockery, insults, derision and lack of respect for each other] is the pinnacle of rationality that everyone here is aiming for.

So yes, it has been a learning experience of some magnitude. It is telling to me that the most polite and fruitful discussions on religion I had here have been with other theists.
 
Yeah I know, but its hard to listen to so many athiests with such negative views of theists and not be on your guard when someone tells you they're an athiest. I've actually found myself disengaging from athiests I used to like before but did not know much about.
 
I've learned to stay out of it for the most part and I also learned that those who believe in God are one day going to realize that religion was only meant for a social gathering point not to get to involved with the actual myth of it.
 
one_raven said:
Not really, no.
I suppose just general knowledge, really.
I have learned a great deal more than I knew about other religions and belief systems - and I have been studying religions since I was about 9 years old (I am 37 now).
Click to expand...
So it sounds like you have learned details/information about the religions, perhaps about their philosophies, practices, ceremonies and the like.
 
cosmictraveler said:
I've learned to stay out of it for the most part and I also learned that those who believe in God are one day going to realize that religion was only meant for a social gathering point not to get to involved with the actual myth of it.
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You've posted in the Religion Forum 455 times. That's quite a number of times. Has it been worth it?

How did you learn by posting here that people who believe in God are going to have the above-mentioned realization?
 
Raven/SAM,
I appreciate the posts you have both made so far. I just want to nip in the bud further discussion of 'the atheists here', at least in this thread. But the bud is on topic.
thanks,
SA
 
Simon Anders said:
You've posted 753 times in this forum. Has it been worth your time and energy given that this is what you learned? Do you get something else out of participating?
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Personally I'm quite satisfied. I will not bad mouth this subforum. To my adversaries..... no hard feelings. There really isn't anything different from when I started. Yacking it up here is really a break for me, I've got plenty of other stuff going on that's more important than this idle chat. I consider what transpires here as entertaining, so it's fun. Religion is definitely not as important to me as it is to some people.

I think it is great to be alive and experience life. I see talking about religion as fun but I don't see being religious as amusing. But it gets boring like anything else that's repetitive, except the golf swing. I treat this as a game also. Interjecting volatile posts and carrying on like a mad atheist only makes it more interesting. I don't think I'm alone in that regard.:D
 
You've posted in the Religion Forum 455 times. That's quite a number of times. Has it been worth it?

I've tried to show others that tolerance is the best thing to have to those who cannot understand what a fact is compared to a belief.




How did you learn by posting here that people who believe in God are going to have the above-mentioned realization?


Because I can only hope they come to their senses one day and realize that they are only believing a myth developed by men and carried out by those who use religion to gain confidence with others to get rewards , whatever those might be, usually power and money.
 
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