| Commentator
Join Date: May 2007 Location: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Posts: 38
| Re: How do you feel about other people that don't believe in God I don't "really" believe in God (as the concept of God is normally defined today) and I "almost" don't believe that humans have a free will (I say "almost" as I haven't finished thinking about this yet).
I do, however, believe that we humans are a highly instinct-driven race. One of our strongest instincts is a fear of people who are distinctly different (race, religion, nationality).
It is of interest to note here that the latin word "hostis" originally meant "stranger" and over time came to mean "enemy".
Apparently, whatever of our genes that promote this suspicion of people from different "tribes" proved useful as we evolved as it seems that those without these genes got slaughtered by people they should have been suspicious of.
Therefore, I believe that our natural instincts will urge us to be wary of those of a different religious persuasion (the Crusades in the 11th-14th centuries are good examples of this).
Now, another of our natural instincts is to promote ourselves as admirable and distinctly better-than-average people. As tolerance of others is promoted as a desirable quality in the international community today, it is likely that many respondents will adopt this stance in their replies to this topic.
As this conflicts with the other human instinct I mentioned above, I therefore feel that a valid and trustworthy outcome from the original question is unlikely.
It is not abnormal to detect a conflict between how we like to think of ourselves and how we really are. |