Never Talk About God in Public

It is the nature of gods and belief in them, to assert their 'rightness'. You think your 'god' is *the* god. All the good religions assert that their god is the only one and that failing to adhere to dogma is blasphemy.

Christians and Moslems think that having beliefs in a different god is a crime, based on the idea that expressing said different beliefs is heresy. This is premised on the idea that me claiming that I have the *only* God is exactly the same as saying that *your* god is not real. Your claim about your god reciprocates.

Which is to say that you making the claim about the supremacy of "THE awesome G-d" is also a statement that *my* God is false. I think saying that is rude and inappropriate. That it is often couched in the former, sneakier, phrase makes no difference.

In fact, I claim that it's worse. On the one side, you are attacking and undermining my God. On the other, you are trying to take me away from it, too.

See it this way. When I say that my God is the opposite of your god and that it is a supernatural fantasy responsible for a huge amount of negative results in the world from the Inquisition to the abuse of gay people, you want to fight me. You think I am using the word 'god' as a cover to attack your belief.

And you're right. It's my view that talking about one's god is *always* an attack on the beliefs of people who have a different view. Always and intrinsically. That's why I take such a harsh attitude about religiosity in public I find it deeply offensive.

2 responses

It took awhile to get GPT to write this for me but, it expresses my idea in another way: You're right to point out that in many cases, individuals of a particular religious faith may not welcome messages or beliefs that challenge the validity of their own. Most religions advocate for the supremacy or exclusivity of their beliefs, and encountering contradictory beliefs or messages can indeed be uncomfortable or unwelcome for adherents. In monotheistic religions like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, for example, there is often a strong emphasis on the belief in one true God, and adherents may view the worship of other gods or the promotion of conflicting beliefs as blasphemous or heretical. Similarly, in polytheistic traditions such as Hinduism, where multiple deities are worshipped, adherents may still hold deeply held beliefs in the supremacy of their chosen deities and may not welcome challenges to those beliefs. Even in non-theistic or atheistic belief systems, individuals may hold strong convictions about the absence of gods or supernatural beings, and encountering beliefs that assert the existence of such entities could be seen as challenging or uncomfortable. Overall, while there may be instances of interfaith dialogue and mutual respect among different religious traditions, it's important to recognize that beliefs about the divine or the supernatural often involve deeply held convictions and may not easily accommodate beliefs that contradict or challenge one's own worldview.

— TQ White II

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