Anyone over 35 “naturalized citizen, etc.” can “run” for President. Being a candidate for one of our two major parties, a bit different, no?
Could any Jew win the nomination for the Republican or Democratic Party? I really doubt it. And that’s with Judaism being a more liked religion to evangelical Christians than any other, by far. Could a Hindu? No. Could a Buddhist? No. Could a Muslim? Hell no. Could an atheist? Fuck no.
But your dismissing an LDS member as “not Christian” really shows your true colors, and they aren’t attractive. In any case, no Mormon in the current pack has won the GOP nomination, yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP as a whole in the end won’t nominate a Mormon to run for POTUS, since so many are probably like you and think LDS is “not Christian.”
The point is clear that to win nomination from one of the major parties in America you MUST be Christian. Period. Even being Mormon might not be Christian enough for the GOP.
“In other words”, he said nothing close to what you claim he said. Either he said it, or he didn’t, and any “other words” you bring into the conversation are your own. If you are going to bring in a strawman have the decency to name him yourself instead of using the name of a real poster, please.
Locrian said that he wanted a penalty for religious practitioners. I said that he said that he wanted a punishment. A penalty is exactly the same thing as a punishment; it’s a tomato v. tomahto difference. I don’t see what you’re hoping to accomplish by obsessing over it.
Let me get this straight — you are genuinely arguing that the world “punishment” is a dishonest paraphrase of “penalty”? There are nuances differentiating the two words, I suppose, but this seems like a great deal of ado about basically nothing. If we believe that an individual wishes religious persons to be punished but come to find out that the instead wishes that they be penalized, just how wrong were we? I don’t think terribly.
How is this clear? Other than your own feelings, what evidence do you have to back up this claim? Obviously simply looking at a the list of candidates from the past few elections and noting their religion is not sufficient, because that’s a sample size too small to prove anything. The experience of Lieberman shows that when a non-Christian runs for Vice President or President, his religion is a non-issue. The people chose Lieberman as VP; four years latter they didn’t choose him as the Democratic nominee, but that had zilch to do with his religion.
How so? In viewing Christianity as one religion and Mormonism as a separate one, I merely follow ordinary classification schemes like this one.
Leave aside that the “many” has turned out to be one so far, and that he has claimed that"forbidden to have children" can only mean castration-his claim is that “penalty” means the same thing as “punishment”(it doesn’t), and “punishment” usually means “prison”, so that means “penalty” can only mean “imprisonment”…which of course is silly.
err…I quite clearly asked about unprovoked hostility at the simple mention of god seeing as that was what the OP was asking.
Your above link was to post in a thread that was set up to discuss the transition from theist to atheist. How one person decided that religion was nonsense. From the outset I think we can expect some strong opinions.(In fact, this is a great opportunity. I invite everyone to trawl that thread and find the most hateful things said. Surely if it is going to be anywhere it’ll be there?)
In any case I think you prove a point that many of us are making. You are seeing hate that simply isn’t there. You are substituting your perception for what was actually written.
Now De Trihs has “robust” opinions and yet the link you make is not hateful in any way that I’d recognise. Care to elaborate where the “hate” is?
The rhetoric of conservatives in America makes this clear. “Christian nation,” etc.
Do you really think a Hindu, Muslim, Baha’i, Sikh, Buddhist, or Atheist (to name a few) has a chance in hell of being nominated by one of our major parties?
It’s the sample we have, and it is illustrative if not conclusive. Still, as component of the argument, it is significant.
Judaism is the only non-Christian religion Evangelicals are friendly to. I’m not surprised that a Jew could be picked as VP; I’ll be stunned (but not in a bad way) the day a Jew wins the nomination from the Republican or Democratic Party.
Religion is faith. The point of faith is that it is not amenable to reason and evidence.
Tell me ITR Champion, is there any evidence I could show you that could make you stop believing?
Them being annoyed and upset is usually a give-away.
No, I don’t accept those as examples at all. The first showed no hate towards religion, merely a statement of religious opposition to life extension. The second has someone making a weak joke and very soon after accepting that it was wrong to do so and no harm was intended.
Tell me, in that second case, had you said that becoming a fan of the Dallas Cowboys was a turning point and someone gently ribbed you about it, would you think that was hateful?
I think you are perceiving what you want to perceive without regard to the actual words written.
So what? Actions speak louder than words; they passed the law.
Literally a two minute search:
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Except that one side, the religious side is ridiculous, incoherent and denies physical laws. You are pretending to a false equality between the two positions.
[/QUOTE]
And, really, that’s just one example. When you think about it, that’s pretty funny, actually. I say people should be left alone and some a self-avowed atheist comes up to tell me that people shouldn’t be left alone to believe what they want to believe, 'cuz one side is, apparently, logically superior to the other (allegedly).
[/QUOTE]
Yes, one side is superior, the atheist one. It has the facts and logic on its side. You are pretending to a false equivalence; this isn’t like arguing over whether red or blue is a more attractive color; this is about objective facts. You are demanding that atheists pretend that their arguments are just as empty as those of the believers, which just isn’t so; you can’t win a fair argument so are trying to simply demand that you be taken seriously.
And what you are actually saying is that atheists should shut up and stop pointing out how utterly baseless and ridiculous your beliefs are, and that they should just sit there and take it from the believers. Because we all know that the believers will never, ever leave everyone else alone.
And you’ve failed to show that is an example of “unprovoked hatred”. Which is somewhat funny since I actually do hate religion; you apparently just can’t tell the difference between hatred and criticism.
Really? When, exactly, did religion make this admission?
[/QUOTE]
Constantly. Every time a believer claims they know something through faith or revelation that’s what they are doing. Every time someone points out something like, say, that a benevolent & omnipotent god wouldn’t create a world filled with suffering and the believers claim that you can’t apply human standards and logic to their god’s actions.
Because it wastes time on nonsense. Just like homeopathic water or aligning chi. Prayer is pseudoscience.
Every single religious person on Earth has performed an irrational act. That’s a long way from insane.
They want to ban abortion. They do this because they have the belief that fetuses have souls (which is silly, because there is no evidence of anyone having a soul, much less a fetus). They want prayer in school. They do this because they have the belief that prayer does anything. They want to teach creationism. They do this because they have the belief that the bronze-age book they worship is correct and modern science is wrong. They want to teach abstinence-only education. They do this because they have the belief that sex is sinful.
Is that clear enough for you to grok?
You’re that guy. Christians dominate this culture and whine that they’re being oppressed. It’s funny, if they weren’t trying to destroy the secular culture of the founders in the same breath.
No. I just find it mildly humorous. After all, you’d think that atheists, as is the usual belief (hah!), would be thrilled to carry the “Everyone should be left alone to their own beliefs” flag
And note how this thread has devolved into one side trying to prove its intellectually superior relative to the other. Guess which side is which?
Atheists want proof that God exists; and that proof simply does not exist. They cannot understand why individuals would believe in God when there is no proof of His existence. People that believe in God cannot come up with a rational argument as to why they believe in God. Needless to say, that this creates an endless debate.
:rolleyes: Oh, please, that isn’t an option and you know it. The believers will not leave us alone, so what you are actually calling for is for atheists to serve as passive punching bags.
The atheists, since they are. You want to take reason and facts off the table because you know quite well your side is completely lacking in both. You can’t actually show that your side is just as valid, so you want to command intellectual equality by fiat.
This is an outright lie. In fact, I’ll come right out and say that, in general, if anyone is bothering anyone, it would be the atheists who tend to lash out at the religious rather than it being the other way around.
You’re quite entitled to your beliefs, but as you atheists would be quick to point out, beliefs aren’t always stooped in reality.
…But, on a serious note, you really don’t know much of what you’re talking about. Do you even know what it means for an argument to be valid? I don’t think you do. Apparently, the validity of an argument is determined by what you agree and/or don’t agree with.
:rolleyes: That’s a blatantly ridiculous claim. The believers are constantly, relentlessly working to harass, harm and oppress everyone else. They pass laws designed to do that, they slander, they lie, they assault, they kill. The man on top of a pile of bodies with a bloody bat screaming about how oppressed he is is an excellent analogy for your argument.
No, it’s determined by the argument’s rationality, logic and and how well it fits the facts - and in both, atheism easily trumps theism. Which is why you keep insisting that theism is just as valid as atheism but fail to actually present any of those logical, fact supported arguments for religion.
