I’ll have to echo Trihs on this one - why assume the contempt isn’t sincere?
For that matter, the people expressing contempt are exercising the same freedom as when you express your religious comments. I saw a few minor not-serious fantasy-threats of physical violence against JWs in that thread, but none directed at you for opening it.
Come on, Ibn. You know better than to take quotes out of context. Leviticus 10:6 isn’t a law, it’s something Moses said to a bunch of guys once, and it applied only to them, and only at the time. I mean, in the next sentence he tells them not to leave their tent. Should we hate people who leave their tents?
The Bible is designed to be both a law book and a history book - primarily the latter. Readers are expected to know to keep the two apart.
We should reach out to those sinners who leave their tents.
Build a tent-a-leaver bridge, as it were.
I’m sorry, but the torture that poor pun underwent is in violation of several Geneva Conventions.
He wouldn’t show me specifically where Leviticus commands people to hate those who keep their hair unkempt. I asked him several times and he finally pretended I amused him. Not worth it.
Well, you have a point there…I sense that I would be better off trying to convince an epileptic gorilla.
I personally know several devout Christians who are also openly gay.
I also don’t have a problem with a person being an atheist as long as they don’t make personal attacks against people of faith.
Some people of faith warrant personal attacks.
Religion is a choice. It’s a decision to live your life accepting answers to tough questions without evidence. If you’re a gay Christian, you’ve chosen to ignore the parts that inconvenience you, and focus on the parts that you agree with. Just like the vast majority of religious people.
I’d say attacking someone who holds a vile and bigoted view is warranted, regardless of whether they think God wants them to think that or not.
How’s that workin’ out, by the way? 
Haven’t been in the work force very long, have you?
Please be reminded that an attack on a position you hold dear but which is full of baloney is not a personal attack.
Do I sense some sarcasm and condescension here?
And interesting thing about many religious people is that they expect special treatment. Perhaps from living in an environment where certain opinions are taboo, they really get bent out of shape by people who don’t share their beliefs and who have no problem of making fun of god and many of his prophets. The IPU really pisses people off. And Christianity is hardly alone in this.
BTW, thinking that people who disagree with you do it because they are stupid conveniently allows you not not listen to and understand their arguments.
In reference to special treatment and with the full understanding that it’s a side note at best, it occurred to me today that “so being an atheist means you don’t believe in God, huh?” is a presumptuous thing to say. I always took “atheism” to mean what it simply and literally implies - without theism, without religion. It’s presumptuous to assume there was something special about the JudeoChristian “God” that it was foremost in the list of religious concepts one can dismiss pending objective evidence.
Not original, of course, but I’ve been watching Atheist Experience on youTube lately and “so you don’t believe in God” seems a common enough feeling among people calling in to the show.
All my life I have encountered bullies, physical and emotional. On the SDMB I have found emotional bullies aplenty. So I leave threads when I sense that such people are answering my posts. Hence the reference to a gorilla.
Well, nobody here can harm you physically, and nobody here can harm you emotionally unless you let them. Frankly, the victim attitude guarantees victimization (to the extent victimization can occur). Add in that your statements are often arrogant or illogical (or arrogantly illogical) and blammo.
Well, I can be frank too. As I see it, I don’t quite fit the “victim profile,” in that I often put a caustic edge in what I say when I sense condescension is used against me. I am not the least bit afraid of any such person; this is a verbal defense, such as is used in court.
I’m ok with religions as long as they amend their beliefs to weed out the bad ones. If Robertson had said he was fine with gays, then I have no problems if he’s Christian. But he said the wrong thing, morally and objectively, so that’s why there’s a backlash.
Better?
Heck, you started the “witness haters” caustically, so it’s clearly not something you only use in reaction to others. Anyway, if you’re not afraid and you don’t fit the “victim profile”, then your comments about bullies (at least on the SDMB) are useless.
I had to check to see that this was GD, not the Pit. On the internet not only does nobody know you’re a dog, they also don’t know if you are a genius. (On comp.arch I’ve seen clueless people lecture John Mashey (one of the inventors of UNIX.) The best defense to someone acting as if you don’t get it is to demolish their argument. If you can’t do that, maybe you actually don’t have an argument.