for you jesus freaks: why?

Question

why do you always have to cram your beliefs down everyon else's throats? every single time i read a religion question, there's always someone telling the asker that their beliefs are wrong and that they're condemned to hell because of it. why do you do this? have you tried being open-minded, maybe allowing free thought? WTF?

Answer 1

The psychological phenomenon you are encountering is a side effect of closure seeking and comes in two forms (analytic and valuing).

When anyone values or sorts something in public they engage in closure which is inherently a conserving behavior. In the analytic or sorting sense no value is conveyed, rather what you are seeing is a black or white; category A,B or C; conforming or nonconforming; guilty or not guilty. Nonetheless, once placed in a category you can dispute it or not. You can also reject the catagorical system as either poor fitting or against your value system. Free thought is antithetical to this psychological process. When I teach it in class, I use M&M's and people engage in the same behavior regarding M&M's as they do here if you just ask the right questions.

The second mechanism, as I said above, is valuing. It is only this psychological mechanism that permits us to say "yes," or "no." When you strike at this, you are that person's underlying value system and unlike the categorical system of judging, this system is subjective and hidden within the person. I also use M&M's in class to teach this and you get the same behaviors on this forum as you get with the M&M's. It is the act of valuing and hence limiting free choice. If I value democracy over totalitarianism, which I happen to do, then I might reject out of hand any valid arguments for totalitarianism that a proponent might bring forward. You will quite often see it couched in emotional or personal terms as well. There are in fact quite valid arguments for totalitarianism. I believe that Aristotle is among the first to discuss the various merits of the various governmental forms and he found quite a number of benefits. When you value something deeply, and everyone values something deeply, you become biased or quite possibly prejudiced.

I believe your question is an example of this valuing disguised as a question.

Look at your question. Instead of asking "why do Christians feel a need to evangelize even the uninterested," your question was phrased as "for you jesus freaks...." Is that far from any other name? Your values came through with the question.

Second, rather than put the next portion in the impersonal third person you address it to "you." And you ask why they "cram your beliefs down everyone's throat." But of course that really isn't true it is you valued judgment coming through. It is similar to the two questions:

"Do you like the Smiths?" (values free query for data)

"You don't like them, do you?" (conveys your opinion and limits answers to "Yes I like them and am willing to take your wrath or 'yes I agree the Smiths are terrible and we are now friends.")

You value harmony, I would suspect and dislike argument even though all learning can only come from deviant behavior. There are extensive journal articles that show there is no group learning at all without deviance. That is probably why our school system fails, we want a high degree of conformity.

You value being open minded, as does 45% of the American population. You were likely born with that preference and it is a form of bigotry in itself. When I split groups either in workplaces or class, 45% are flexible and 55% are structured and closed. Both are valuable and valued preferences in their domain but dangerous outside their proper domain. In the process of exploring flexibility is superior, but in deciding closure wins.

Also, you are being "closed minded." Have you considered that it can be correct to tell someone their beliefs are wrong if in fact they are. Would you not have preferred someone tell Sadaam Hussein or Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot their belief system was wrong, sat down with them and modified their points of view. How many millions of Cambodians would be alive if Pol Pot had not been convinced he could build Utopia? How many millions of people would be alive if Hitler had not believed he could build a master race? How many millions would be alive if Stalin had not been willing to kill to guarantee the equality of men?

Of course some belief systems are wrong. More commonly, some belief systems have ideas in them that are either not well thought out or have assumptions behind them that are non-sequitars.

My own religious belief system has an interesting problem in it for me. I am Catholic. The deciding principal in Catholicism is not logic but rather conformity to the activities and thoughts of the first century church. If it happened in the early Church it is allowed today (rational or not); if it didn't happen in the early Church it is not allowed today (rational or not). The reason being is that Catholicism follows the faith of the apostles not faith in Reason. The reason there are 46,000 Protestant denominations is that you can reason anything into being and yet there is still but one Catholic Church. This raises the problem for me. There were clearly no women presbyters and apostle's in the Church, so there cannot be any today. Yet, on what rational ground can I say a woman cannot be a priest? I cannot find one, except that Jesus didn't do it and that is alone sufficient and necessary.

Being open minded means to be critical of your own beliefs. I try to correct ideas which are misconceived or patently false (flat Earthers for example), but I am conscious of my own beliefs. My God had diaper rash after all, who am I to complain about your silly beliefs?

Answer 2

Morning, Fuzziness. There is a passage in the Gospels where Jesus tells his followers that if someone doesn't want to hear the message then move on. I really wish the Christians would take a clue from that passage. Then there is the passage that say that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, that gets missed, too.

Answer 3

Because religion is based on NOT allowing free thought. Think about it, they're asking you to believe in something no one can definitively prove exists and a book no one can prove was written by some higher being. They don't want anyone to think for themselves (and possibly realize the whole thing is a sham), they want you to believe what they TELL you.

Even when these movies come out, like Davinci Code and The Last Temptation, the churches hurridly scramble to set up 'bible studies' around the movie so they can force their interpretations into the congregation's heads.

Answer 4

In every answer I have given, I did not try to stuff anything down anyone's throat, I answered the question with how I feel, and what I thought. If the person asking the question didn't want to hear the answer maybe that person shouldn't ask the question. You don't read about us Jesus Freaks asking you questions about your beliefs. No, You ask we answer, and I am open minded, enough to know that there is one true God, his Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is all I need to know

Answer 5

First of all, there is nothing making you check out the q&a in this catorgory. Secondly, christians are commanded to share the gospel. Not only are we commanded to we are overjoyed too. If you are so open-minded than allow us our beliefs. Geesh, if our belief told us to share the word and we didn't, you would complain about that--saying we are bad Christians. I will say that there are some very bad and annoying christians out there. And sadly, many of those have the biggest mouths.

Think of it this way and follow the logic: if you saw someone you loved about to get hit by a train, wouldn't you try to stop it??? For Christians it is kind of the same thing. Yes, we believe in a Heaven and a Hell. yes, we believe that if you don't accept Jesus you will go to Hell. We love Jesus and his people too much to allow you to just go to Hell without telling you what we believe to be true. Be annoyed if you want, but if you are talking to a true Christian it is out of love, for you and God.

Answer 6

It is their right to express their opinion here just like everyone else. Why do you cram your opinions down the throats of people that you disagree with? A double standard, perhaps?

If you don't want to discuss religion, then why are you in the "Religion & Spirituality" section?

Jesus told his followers to spread the truth. Peter, Paul & John told Christians to give advice to someone who was sinning in an attempt to disuade him from his evil ways. And the Jewish prophet Ezekiel stated that if you saw someone sinning and said nothing about it to him, then it is partially your fault that this person went to Hell.

The Bible never tells Christians to convert anyone; but the Bible does tell Christians to spread the truth so that people will have both sides of the story and can make up their own mind about what they want to believe.

Answer 7

There seems to be a certain intolerance with many Christians. I think it's because it's not easy to maintain a belief in notions that are contradicted by the real world. You have to really work at it! So when someone expresses some reasonable or scientific fact that tends to contradict their beliefs, it's distressing to them. So presenting their arguments or attacking other beliefs becomes a way to maintain their own beliefs. Going to Sunday meeting keeps everything churning nicely, too. They need their beliefs, but they have to continue doing this sort of thing to keep everything shored up.

Bothersome to you and me, but you asked for a reason why...

Answer 8

Why don't you actually read the majority of the posts here instead of only the ones that fit your agenda?
Count them, it is SO obvious to everyone that the "atheists freaks" are the ones that are CONSTANTLY trying to shove their beilefs down everyone's throats, being close minded and not allowing free thought.
It's pathetic that the atheists here can't see that they are doing, every single day, exactly what they claim the Christians are doing....and they are doing it more often.
Get your head out of your azz and pay attention to the obvious.

Answer 9

First, I don't cram my beliefs down people's throats, I just tell them what I believe, they don't have to listen. Second, I don't condemn people God does, I just tell people the truth. Third, why on earth should I be open-minded about the things that I don't believe in. You are such a contradiction, you tell others to be open minded and allow free thought, yet you can't even do that yourself. Instead of being open-minded, you judged me and called me a Jesus freak.

Answer 10

It is my experience, that there are no open minded people in the world. You obviously have a close minded opinion about Christians due to negative feedback on a chat board that is probably overrun with over zealous teenagers. More than likely you have met a lot of Christians and you didn't really know it because they were doing exactly what you asked, not 'cramming their beliefs down your throat'. There are a lot of good Christians out there doing good things for other people, so stop listening to every little thing someone says on this board and listening to all the negative media feedback and try to be open minded. I know its hard, and in my opinion impossible, but try.

Answer 11

Because it's our responsibility to try to save your poor, lost soul and show you the love and hope of Jesus.
It's a poor approach for some Christians to tell people they are going to hell. They should tell you about the promise of ever-lasting life that God offers. The fire and brimstone approach is misguided and I apologize for these people as a Christian....but every religion has them, we're just human.
But without Him, there is only a nasty, brutish, and short life. The love of Jesus brings beauty and light into the world. This life of love and beauty, free from sin and the threat of eternal damnation is the life God wanted us to live.