The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

Most of the alternatives that I know are scatologically themed, which just offends a different group of people.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell

Just for the record, anyone who is questioning why I'm having a 3-year-old kid go through all that shit to have a Crisis of Faith should lay blame squarely on the fact that I'm actually working with a pre-existing character whose backstory does involve them going through that shit at that age, and that I can find no good reason to mess around with the timeline in that regard.

Yeah, but many those are also the same sort of people who'd get offended with profanities in general.

Thank you for finding that quote. It was more or less the first thing that sprang to mind

You're welcome.

On that note, such phrases usually don't mean anything more than just exclamation of frustration/anger/surprise/etc. They're not really aimed at anyone. And religious people actually used to find it a lot more offensive than the atheists are supposed to because you're not supposed to invoke His name in vain (that's why it's blasphemy).

I've used the expression "My God" countless times just in this forum, it's ingrained in me, and I couldn't care less if it constitutes blasphemy in someone's eyes, it makes no sense to apply that concept to an atheist.

As an atheist I try not to use blasphemous swear words as often as I used to in the past. But old habits die hard especially when all the media and culture you've absorbed since childhood enables them. I also try to avoid using gendered ones too. And the ones that are homophobic and transphobic. Fortunately I never got into the habit of using racist epithets.

Granted, this doesn't leave that many swear words left. But we all have to make sacrifices for a better world.

Edited by M84 on Nov 22nd 2018 at 6:47:30 PM

Except this isn't the same thing, by which I mean, it's not an insult of religious people, can't even say it offends anyone but fundamentalists and again, blasphemy is a concept that makes no sense to apply to my life.

The way I see it, when I say "My God" it'd not blasphemous cos I'm talking about my god, and I don't have one, so I'm not actually talking about a god.

Maybe but it kinda sound like "Well it dosent sound bad to me so fuck you"

And yeah as a atheist I try to not said stuff like that in part because I dont want it my vocabulary, usually end saying "for love of all beings"; is the close stuff I have come to replace it.

I find it fascinating that some cultures traditionally dont have swear words, and have to borrow them from English.

I just use the F word...

It is a useful word.

I do also substitute the word "fuck" a lot of the time.

Even when it doesn't make much sense.

I rarely swear in situations where I can think clearly enough to consciously choose my words anyway, so it's kind of a moot point. Most local curse words are religious in nature (lots of nicknames for Satan for some reason) so I usually default to those.

If I swear for emphasis - or online where I have more time to think - I try to get more creative though. I sometimes use "Gods!" as a generic "to whomever might be listening" sort of thing.

I can’t remember where in this forum there was discussion about the person who was trying to be a missionary to the Sentinelese around India who died, but there was some iirc.

There was a Washington Post article that contained excerpts from his recovered journal that shed some light in his motivations and thoughts. Basically, it seemed like he was an evangelical Christian who thought he had to save the Sentinelese souls and even then he wasn’t unaware that he could easily be killed. Seemed like he knew it could happen but rationalized it that it would be martyrdom.

Was he aware that he could easily kill those he was trying to "save" just by walking on the island and spreading common diseases that they almost certainly have any immunity to?

Apparently not

That was such a big criticism against him and considering how protective the government is for these people, there’s not much sympathy for his fate

Doesn't the history class in America teach the impact of Old World diseases on Native American populations?

Might focus more on the intentional killings rather the unintentional ones maybe?

At least in Peru we do briefly touch upon it, but the sources of the numbers differ from author to author, we also have to consider that the level of development varied across the American continent and that affected how vulnerable was the population to disease.

You "could" excuse the Europeans that brought diseases back then because by that time the field of epidemologics was barren and there is no mention of them spreading smallpox deliberately (unlike the mongols during the siege of Kaffa).

Today however, there is no excuse of not knowing about what illness you can bring with you to an isolated place so there's not much sympathy to be given to the man on that aspect.

Still, it's just strange to me how even nowadays, there are groups of people who manage to isolate themselves from developed society despite increasing globalisation. I think the missionary wasn't aware of this fact and undeservedly paid the price for it.

Oh, he knew. You don't just accidentally stumble upon remote islands in the Indian Ocean that are surrounded by coast guard patrols and expressly off-limit to all visitors .

Also, is one thing to know that and there is to "know" about it, more of the time is just a random fact that can easly be slipped out out of mind.

But he should have learn more about the island before making the trip.