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Family Religious Background of Objectivists

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What is your "religious" background?? (my curiosity centers around family religious background)  

524 members have voted

  1. 1. What is your "religious" background?? (my curiosity centers around family religious background)

    • Catholic
      110
    • Protestant
      151
    • Muslim
      5
    • Agnostic
      31
    • Animistt
      0
    • Atheist
      59
    • Mormon
      15
    • Jewish
      29
    • other/combined
      58


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They would either die, shun me, or send me a whole lot of bibles that I dont want.

why do you not want the bibles??? They can play an essential role in your life.

CONSIDER;

you are with your wife during childbirth. You have begun to doubt her scientific explanation that it has something to do with "the fact that I am trying to squeeze something the size of a watermelon out of somethingthe size of a peach!" All you have to do is consult the Bible. Then calmly place your hand on her shoulder and say "Honey, I know you are upset right now, but this is all your fault, you see, You are a sinner, and so you must be punished for your sins. Naturally because your great great great great great great grandmother ate too much, you need to suffer, I hope you understand if not, its all written in Genesis"

At this point she will be grateful, she will probably be glad to know that her families over eating habits are the reason she is at fault and must be punished. There will be no more enmity between you and her ;)

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ohhhhhh, such a low blow, attacking biblical denigration of women and inheritance of sin is like... shooting fish in a barrel... with a thermonuclear weapon... with laser guided, infared, fish seeking technology...

LOL I was beginning to think no-one had picked up on my dry sarcasm , references to biblical explanations for child birth pains, and old apples. :blink:

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I'm confused again. :D Confused and finding the majority of these posts rediculous, hypocritical, and completely ungenuine.

It isn't possible to be religious and an Objectivist. It simply isn't possible.

Only those who answered Atheist could potentially be an Objectivist, currently less than 1 out of 4. Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who defined it as inherantely against the supernatural, including the belief that God exists. Therefore if you are not an Atheist, you cannot be an Objectivist, pure and simple.

Second, if you did believe in God, then you would have to conceed that the existence of God could place a requirement upon man to live for something other than himself, i.e. God. Certainly God's rational self-interest would be more important than our own rational self-interest since he would be the creator of the entire universe. His purposes might include caring about other servants of His and altruism would raise its ugly head. That concession would change and destroy so much of the assumptions of the Objectivist worldview as to cease to be Objectivist.

So for the bulk of you who claimed to be Objectivist and something other than Atheist, conceed that you are mistaken and can't be both. :)

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marotta:

I think you should re-read the poll question. Once you do that, re-read it again.

The poll question goes, " What is your "religious" background?? (my curiosity centers around family religious background) "

Hence everyone here has replied to what particular religion their parents/family follow. I speak for myself, if not for everyone, that i am an atheist. But that does not necessarily mean that the members of my family are also atheists.

And yes it's not possible for one to be religious and an Objectivist. People are just talking about their families here. Like I posted before, my family follows the hindu religion and hence I ticked, Others/Combined.

I hope you understand now.

dinesh.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that being raised as a Catholic allowed me to truly understand how corrupt it really is. As soon as I read Ayn Rand, it all became very clear to me. Obvious really. I don't understand how a Catholic could read Ayn Rand and then denounce Objectivism.

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  • 1 year later...

1. Marotta, calm down -- this poll & thread are an indication of how people were RAISED.

2. Conceed is actually spelled "concede."

I was raised (like Betsy) in what is best termed a "secular Jewish" home. I announced my Atheism to my parents as I was undergoing preparations for my bar-mitzvah. I told them, quite simply, that I did not believe as they did, and that I would not undergo said ceremony. They never gave me any grief over my decision, thankfully.

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... digging up a thread this old ... necro-bumping.
:)

I created a post that listed many of the old Polls on the forum. That's what led people to such an old thread.

Religious backgrounds seem fairly mixed. I wonder what we would find if we did a poll about general levels of rationality people were taught when growing up. I wonder if we'd still be all over the map.

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Raised Southern Baptist. My mom's side of the family are big time SBC...dad's side of the family is kind of apathetic but consider themselves Methodist. My dad became a Christian when he was in college and, at some point, decided to be a Baptist.

My parents are both very intelligent, rational people. My mom just hasn't put a whole lot of thought into why she believes what she does, and my dad has spent decades trying to prove to himself that his religion is correct. I think that if he could take a step back and look at his religion in a neutral way, he would understand why it doesn't make sense. He just doesn't want to because he wants it to be true so badly.

You know, now that I look at it, this demographic fairly-well mimics the distribution of faiths in America.

Anyone can be an Objectivist!

Except for the 19% people being raised atheist, I would agree.

Edited by Moose
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That doesn't really make sense. Something on the order of 95% of people on earth will die with the religion they were born into. When something is so ingrained in people, they don't see it as irrational and, therefore, do not see the need to move towards a more rational belief system.

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My parents were Catholic and Lutheran before they got married. After that, they turned to Christian Science, studying directly under Mary Baker Eddy. That lasted a couple years, until a friend introduced them to Objectivism. I started reading the fiction novels of Ayn Rand and found them logical and so sensible that I could not understand why anyone would go for the subterfuge and BS that is other philosophers like Kant, Plato et al.

We stopped going to church in the early 1960s. This was the end of a long search for truth. My father, prior to that, had studied all the religions of the world, including Buddhism. He mastered the five Yoga levels at that time. He was studying to be a priest. Turned out he was weak in geography, so he didn't make it into the priesthood (he was thankful for that later on!)

All my childhood, I was taught "god is in your consciousness" (the Christian Science view) but I was skeptical all along.

In later years, when we all discovered Objectivism, we dove into it head first. We attended the lectures (at that time, the core of the movement was centered in New York City) of Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand and Dr. Leonard Peikoff many times. We subscribed to the Ayn Rand Letter for many years up to about 1972 or so.

Dad was still pretty easy going, but Mom was a hardline Objectivist--so much so that she had difficulty making friends. She was also busy with her own project, analyzing the ancient scriptures, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Stoicism. She was on the cusp of uncovering the true writings of Jesus and drawing Objectivist parallels to them as opposed to that farcicle document called the Bible. She had discovered some rare untranslated original Latin documents that were not discussed in religious circles, and she was determined to make that thesis she was working on into her book. That was, until she died. Sadly, that book was never published.

Both of them are long gone today. I've been 'away' from Objectivism for thirty some-odd years now. And in the interest of not dying alone and single, I married a Catholic filipina in the Philippines. Fortunately, she is not a practicing Catholic--we don't go to church, except when dragged there by social obligations at holiday events. I'm thankful for my wife and her tolerance of me for who I am. We have somewhat mixed premises today when it comes to religion, as that's not an area where I've studied much. Objectivism serves me more as a guide to morality, right and wrong.

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  • 1 month later...

My dad came from a Greek Orthodox family, though he is more or less agnostic (He's also the guy who introduced me to Ayn Rand).

My mom is luthern, but not really religious.

I'm atheist, and my mom nearly flipped when I told her that my wife and I were not going to have our son baptised. Which, I didn't really understand, what the hell were we supposed to baptise him as? I'm atheist and my wife is agnostic, and we're both against organized religion. I said, we're going to let him grow up and decide for himself what he wants to do (which will, hopefully, NOT involve any sort of religion or baptising).

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  • 1 month later...

I was raised by family of engineers in Soviet Union with country morphing into democratic Ukraine in 1991. This means that as engineers my parents were smart to recognize what religion is and does to people, and the society as a whole was removed from religion by force during Soviet Union time long before my time (that's totalitarism for you).

So, I can claim no religious background. Agnostic or atheist works for me. I choose agnostic, b/c according to usual definition of atheist, it would mean that I disbelief the existance of God, whatever it's defined as. However, I don't, I simply don't see any concise proof, as such it makes my view agnostic.

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The two numbers that jump out in this (admittedly unscientific) survey are: Judaism and Agnostic/Atheistic. One estimate for the US, puts Judaism at just over 1% of the population; so the representation on the forum is relatively high. (There've been some threads on the topic. I found this one, but I think there are others.)

More out of line with the general population is the high % of Atheist / Agnostic.

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My parents were baptist, but we never went to Church too often. So I was raised to believe there is a God, which I think its funny because I can remember the first time I ever heard of Atheism. My dad and I were drving and the car in front of us had the fish that said Darwin in it, with the legs; my dad says "Oh boy, an atheist!" and I asked what that was and he explained. It was the most absurd thing I ever heard, considering I was raised to believe in God, I always assumed he was proved. :glare: Well when I was 15 I started questioning alot more, etc... Went through an Agnostic phase and then became an Atheist after I read Fountainhead.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Agnostic or atheist works for me. I choose agnostic, b/c according to usual definition of atheist, it would mean that I disbelief the existance of God, whatever it's defined as. However, I don't, I simply don't see any concise proof, as such it makes my view agnostic.
I was wrong about this. My reasoning was faulty. After reading OPAR I can understand it now.

I am atheist.

The claim that God exists is arbitrary. It is neither false nor true. It invalidates itself.

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