Do you sometimes feel sorry for people who are utterly ignorant of other faiths?

Question

I see so many misconception of flat out ignorance of lore and faith. Sometimes I laugh, but some times I feel really sorry for some of them. Why would they want to exist in that little box?

Steve: Sometimes that ignorance does hurt people. Ignorance can lead to boderline smear campaigns. It hurt people's feelings, thier social standing, the saftey of thier children in extreme cases. Is that really worth it, just to be "right"?

Who says I speak only of America?

Hedge that reminds me of my family. LOL My dad goes to a methodist church, my sister, brother in law and I are Pagan, my mom is a thiest Buddhist and my husband is athiest. We have some really cool philosphical debates over dinners. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Answer 1

i do pity their small-mindedness in the cases of intolerant people.
for those who have never tried being curious, well thats just lazy.
we all need to look outside our box every now and then.

i may not be an expert on the variety of religions and beliefs, some i know better than others, but i DO know they exist, and i do respect the fact that the majority of their followers are happy and living normal lives etc - unlike the hate-mongers, who promote ignorance, blatant lies, hatred, aggression, violence and bullying.

one poster says why worry, they cant hurt anyone.
ah, but you're not quite right there.
the malicious few HAVE hurt others, emotionally, physically and mentally. otherwise we would not have had, over the last few hundred years, women in power being burned, genocide , gays committing suicide etc.

some have been lied to so well, and brainwashed very competently, that they are petrified to look outside their box, as they have been told that everything and everyone is evil.
i feel very sorry for those, especially when those still in school have not been given the opportunity to explore all the possibilities.
i am a pagan witch, and if my children follow the same direction i will be delighted! but if they wish to become hindu or christian, i will accept it, love them the same, and probably have very interesting chats over dinner!!

for those who will never have that opportunity, i send all my love and hopes, as they need all the support they can get.
the world is vast. let everyone get up off their behinds and explore it and its multitude of possibilities!

blessed be
)o(

Answer 2

Yes you are wrong to feel that way, guess you're not a proper christian if you feel these things - why would you feel sorry for the people that have total freedom over their own lives! Being a non-believer I don't give a hoot about feeling wrong or right because of something totally imaginary that has a hold over my life. Pascals wager does nothing to entice me to believe, I'm not a betting person.

Answer 3

Many are just afraid. They believe what they were told as a child and never question it their entire lives. I pity the fearful but not the lazy.

You try to show them what the Bible really has to say and if they accept it great. If they don't, well, we all have to stand or fall on our own. That is the flip side of free will.

Answer 4

Mostly I feel sorry for the targets of their ignorance. When I feel anger, it's at the ones who are willfully ignorant, who either don't bother to try to learn, or insist on fitting everything they know about the "other" into the same box they live in. You know, the ones who say, "Oh, yeah, I've looked into it--and it's still wrong!"

Answer 5

Because they are scared. They don't want to think that other people may possibly be right. There is always a chance that I may be wrong in my beliefs, and they have the same chance. They just can't admit that. That would mean they have been going to church and wasting their time for nothing.

Answer 6

Not the ignorance per se.

But the hatred, the "one right way"ness, the exclusion of all those other people in being as human, as spiritual, as we are ourselves.


"Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next neighborhood are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose that we could ever look at people who grew up in a different culture, people who dress or speak or worship differently than we do, and see not savages or sinners but siblings, not rivals but fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of enlightenment.

Yet that is what I yearn to see. The difference between “us” and “them” is not in the person being judged, but in the person judging. When we declare strangers to be as fully human, as fully spiritual as we are, it does not mean that *they* have passed a threshold of spiritual maturity. It means that *we* have." (Source unknown)

Answer 7

To a degree I feel sorry for them, but most of the time I'm just wary. Those are the ones that you need to watch out for. They're operating on nothing more than accepting what they've been told. Ever heard of the Nazis? They did the same thing. That type of thinking (or lack thereof) is flat out dangerous.

Answer 8

I do. And I find it odd that most 'others' (Pagan, et al) HAVE read the bible and know quite a bit about organized religion. But, in my experience, very, very few religious folk have ever sought to learn about us and ours. Now, why is that? Oh, I forgot..its a sin!!
Blesseings

Answer 9

I do, and sometimes I detest their ignorance. But, honestly, I feel I am not one to judge about religious ignorance, as I know very little of any religion (although I know more about Buddhism and Shintoism than other Americans).

Answer 10

Yes, but I've met Christians that think the bible should be taken literally rather than ironically!