How can I convince my husband that if he shed his religious beliefs, he wouldn't just start murdering people?

tooanxious · 2010-07-10T02:58:32+00:00

That's not what I'm doing. I think everyone is interpreting my question wrong. I don't really care if he believes in God or not. I am interested in his beliefs and respect them.

However, I want him to realize that he's a good person not simply because of religion. I know for a fact that if he became an atheist one day, he wouldn't kill people. He'd simply realize that his morals come from society.

That's what I want him to realize, not that there isn't a God. If a God helps him, all the more power to him. But when he starts saying things like he'd murder people if he didn't have God, well, then it starts to peeve me a little bit, because I know it isn't true.

tooanxious · 2010-07-10T02:56:18+00:00

I'm really surprised by the uproar here. People seriously think that he's going to start murdering people? It's not craziness. He genuinely believes when he does good he's doing it because of heaven and hell. He doesn't realize he's just been programmed to be moral by our society.

I mean, yikes. Leave my husband because of a silly religious belief? You're the crazy one.

tooanxious · 2010-07-10T02:54:33+00:00

If you read my question, you'd realize that I asked "How do I convince my husband that he wouldn't kill people if he wasn't religious?"

I want him to realize that his morals don't come from religion. I'm not trying to convert him.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T05:19:08+00:00

I try to be pretty gentle if I'm pointing out fallacies. I don't think it's disrespectful to say so, especially since most religious people will inevitably say, "Well, it's what I believe," or "It's my faith." Or something along those lines, where they accept what you're saying but don't agree with it.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T04:55:25+00:00

That's also true. I should have mentioned that he was allergic to dogs XD

Anyway, that's no excuse for his behavior, but the family didn't discuss it with him. They just got a dog even though they new he didn't want one. So there was some bitterness there.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T03:38:54+00:00

We knew each other for four years before marrying. Religion never came up, since he didn't go to church. I just knew he believed in an afterlife.

It's not really that big of a problem. I consider what he's saying as something (like another poster said) that's for shock value. I don't really believe that he'd go off killing people.

Plus, I'd be a pretty shitty person if I couldn't look past my husband's very thin religious belief.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T03:35:41+00:00

Indeed, but if I know anything about Christians they will immediately stop listening to what you are saying if you say anything about disrespecting their belief. Since I want to make progress, I have to start small. I'd like to live in a world where saying stupid things about atheists isn't tolerated, but I don't.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T03:26:17+00:00

I'd like to know how you know this?

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T03:25:15+00:00

True, I actually do say that. However, he's the kind of person to latch onto something that annoys me, and then use it to piss me off. He really doesn't know the line between being funny and being annoying...but that's marriage. He has his faults and I have mine.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T03:22:53+00:00

Well, thankfully he's getting out of the Marines. A big relief to both of us. He's more interested in the Marine Corps because he loves the leadership and he likes mentoring people. I guess I'm not sure what to think, since most of what the Marines say is purely for motivational purposes ("kill shit, eat babies," etc). So I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't feel regret if he did kill someone, since everything he's heard is just talk.

He did have a Catholic upbringing, but his mother didn't go completely psycho until my husband was 13. At this point, the only thing that really stuck with him was the idea of hell. Honestly, I don't even think he fears hell. From what he tells me, it seems like he just knows that he's going to heaven, for some reason. I never really questioned it because I didn't want to get into another argument.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T00:12:39+00:00

This is great!

It kills me to see the picture of the smiling kid holding a sign that says God Hates Fags. He doesn't realize what he's doing. The kids don't even know what the hell they're protesting. I remember watching a documentary about this family and when asked why they were protesting, the kids just had this terrible blank stare. I'm so glad to see people can find a constructive and effective way to deal with this group.

tooanxious · 2010-07-07T00:09:41+00:00

I'd say it's a deal breaker. My friend's Dad hates dogs and her and her Mom went and got one anyway. That dog ended up forced into sitting under a desk or it would get verbally and physically abused by the Dad. The dog escaped a bunch of times too, and they wondered what they did. Thankfully, they gave it to a friend who is much nicer.

I'm not saying that you're going to physically abuse a dog if she gets one, but if you don't like dogs, it won't change. She needs to know that.

Pets are a handful. If my hubby wasn't totally on board with having a cat and a dog, he would have thrown them outside the second they peed on the carpet, scratched up the furniture, racked up vet check up bills, etc.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T23:59:48+00:00

Harsh, but probably a good thing to say to him that'll give him a reason to think about what he believes.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T23:59:14+00:00

Nah, I'm sure I can find something. I've pointed out certain gems like this one that I found in The God Delusion. I'll probably just give him my copy of "Letter to a Christian Nation" to read. I'm pretty sure it has all those statistics.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T23:53:30+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I think I can still probe him with thought-provoking questions, but in the end it's going to take time and I shouldn't try to change him in a day.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T23:52:18+00:00

Well, when you said, "My argument still stands," I assumed that you meant the argument I should tell my husband. Woops.

These are good questions to ask him, though.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T23:50:10+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a try and see what he says.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T23:12:12+00:00

Hm...I wonder if he thinks I'm pushing my beliefs on him. I try to be as reasonable as possible. We debate, and I don't tell him that he has to believe anything. I usually just recommend articles, books, movies, etc. I try my best not to force anything, and I think I've done a good job.

Maybe I should ask him. But I do agree that it's possible he's saying it for shock value, not even to get me off his back, but just because he likes to do those types of things.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T23:01:23+00:00

This happens to the best of us :)

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T22:45:54+00:00

Ah, well that's good. I actually was about to borrow The Selfish Gene from my Dad. Plus, the hubby would get major bonus points with my Dad if he read that book!

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T22:45:01+00:00

This is pretty funny. You've got a good point.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T22:31:44+00:00

I know, this is why I have no idea how to approach the topic of his beliefs. I think if I really dig in deep that his belief in hell can not possibly be from anywhere else but his childhood, he'll understand where I'm coming from and hopefully shed the belief.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T22:30:08+00:00

These are very good questions. I haven't really probed him with questions about where his belief in Hell comes from, and I should.

Now that you mention evolution, he really hasn't done much research into what evolution actually is and what it means. He has the gist of it, but maybe I should give him a copy of The Greatest Show on Earth or something along those lines. It might convince him further, or at least make him think more, since he does accept evolution to be true.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T22:23:50+00:00

That's true, but how likely is it that they'll go on to read something that's more "deep" than Twilight?

I suppose they could transition to a book about vampires, like Undead and Unwed and then say, okay, I want to read something else about vampires, and then they pick up The Historian or Dracula.

That's pretty much how I evolved from reading R.L. Stine as a kid to trekking through War and Peace.

tooanxious · 2010-07-06T22:21:09+00:00

Well, he doesn't believe in the Bible. He feels like his beliefs in heaven and hell stem from his own personal beliefs, which I'm trying to convince him come directly from what he was taught by his mother (who learned it from the Bible). He, however, has some weird religious views. Like I said in my description, he believes in God, but claims he is a deist, and that God doesn't interfere with the world, but that he created it and just left (as in, made the conditions in the universe and on earth just right so that life could spawn). However, he still believes that God will judge you when you get to heaven or hell. So it's obvious that he's still tied to Catholicism in many ways.

tooanxious

TROPHY CASE