# "Athiests Need to Just Shut Up", part II **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 13, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019 "2007-02-13T14:46:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/121 "2007-02-23T07:14:40Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] If you know Catholicism best, it suggests to me that you know little of religion. [/quote] Thanks. That’s a productive comment. I was raised Catholic, so that’s what I know best. But be snotty if that’s what you’re best at. > [@](#): > > First, it is really not that easy to commit a mortal sin. Breaking a Commandment is a mortal sin. That means swearing, lying, coveting; can’t skip a week of church. Can’t argue with your parents. Most people do that pretty often. > [@](#): > > I don’t know how often you murder people, rob banks, or cheat on your spouse, but most of the sins that people believed were “mortal” were not. (I am not claiming that no Catholic teacher ever claimed that they were mortal, only that that particular set of popular teachings was often in error ands is certainly not taught, today.) As I said, check out the Ten Commandments. Probably depends on how rigidly you interpret these, but conceivably a normal person could break several in a day. So you don’t think that Christianity elevates clergy and seeks to intervene in a person’s relationship with God? Seems to me every religion offers an interpretation of God, and most hold theirs up at the only way to see God or Gods. Very limiting, quite controlling of people’s minds and ways of thinking and being. I prefer to trust my own experiences of the Divine to others’. You’re not even trying to argue that plenty of people can be good without religion, I see. Or without God. So we’re basically in agreement, though I honestly think trying to contend that religion doesn’t try to exert enormous control over some very important aspects of people’s lives is at best a fool’s errand… This is why I don’t participate in these threads. Maybe I should go back to doing that. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/122 "2007-02-23T07:29:38Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak] Breaking a Commandment is a mortal sin. That means swearing, lying, coveting; can’t skip a week of church. Can’t argue with your parents. Most people do that pretty often. [/QUOTE] I have no idea where you got that idea, but aside from skipping Sunday mass, none of the other things you mentioned were mortal sins even in the most rigid pre-Vatican II church, (unless you happened to live in a Jansenist-dominated parish). It has simply never been true that “breaking a Commandment” was _de facto_ a mortal sin–that is why there was a whole discussion in old texts identifying mortal vs. venial sins. If you shut your widowed mother up in the basement and fed her a minimal subsistence diet, prevented her from going to church or to see her friends, and otherwise abused her, you would probably be deemed to have committed a mortal sin against the commandment “Honor your father and your mother.” If, as a teen, you got mad that she would not let you date the “delinquent” kid down the street and yelled “I hate you” at her, it was not generally considered a mortal sin even back in the bad old days. If you are going to post that churches are only set up to control people by making themselves the only mediating agency between humans and God, it would help if you at least got your examples right. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/123 "2007-02-23T07:38:54Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] If you are going to post that churches are only set up to control people by making themselves the only mediating agency between humans and God, it would help if you at least got your examples right. [/QUOTE] Really? OK, boss. You win. Religion is good for people. Thinking for yourself is bad. And I’m out of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/124 "2007-02-23T07:49:11Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak] Really? OK, boss. You win. Religion is good for people. Thinking for yourself is bad. And I’m out of this thread. [/QUOTE] Go where you’d like, but mischaracterizing my statements does your point no more good than misrepresenting the teachings of the Catholic Church. There is plenty to criticize in the RCC or in religion, in general. My specific point was that when you criticize a group, this being the Straight Dope, you really ought to get your facts straight. Your claims about the RCC were factually in error. Get your facts correct and tighhten up your logic, a bit, and you can probaly post happily in this thread over and over. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/125 "2007-02-23T07:51:39Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak] Really? OK, boss. You win. Religion is good for people. Thinking for yourself is bad. And I’m out of this thread. [/QUOTE] I realize this sounds like a lame cop out, and in a sense it is. I never should have posted to this thread. I rarely discuss religion, I do think it can be a form of mind control, had a bad Catholic experience and it has colored my view of religion. I disagree with tomddebb on several point but I really do not want to argue about this. Think what you want, I really don’t care. Also, I’m going to be without a computer for the weekend and can’t post anyway, so… there you go. If you want to consider that a win for religionist everywhere, go on with your bad self. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/126 "2007-02-23T08:39:50Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak] If you want to consider that a win for religionist everywhere, go on with your bad self. [/QUOTE] There is no claim for a “win for religionists” and you are clearly not reading what I have actually written. Have a good weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/127 "2007-02-24T02:46:57Z")
> [@](#): > > **Rubystreak** : I’m pretty sure Protestants require clergy for weddings, officiating Mass, etc. Clearly, people with that much power and pull with the Almighty can translate that power into massive social, economic, and political power. It’s almost like currency. > [@](#): > > Are you really actually denying that religious institutions have had and continue to have massive economic, social, and political power? Can you really be saying that? No. Since I asked for a clarification of what you were saying, that should be a fairly good indication to you that I wasn’t yet taking a position. Episcopal churches sometimes refer to their communion services as “mass,” but I don’t know of any other Protestant denomination that does. Marriage within a church by a minister is not usually required. A couple can choose to be married by a judge, a Justice of the Peace, a ship’s captain or others who are legally authorized to perform the ceremony. I am unfamiliar with any Protestant denomination that places its clergy on a higher plane between the members and God. I am aware that there are members of the clergy who take on positions of economic and political power, but that power is not _in_ the mystical world. In my opinion, too often it tries to intrude into our government. I don’t think that any of the Christians here have argued that you have to be a Christian to be a good person. (Nor have they argued that being a Christian makes you good.) ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/128 "2007-02-24T14:49:02Z")
[QUOTE=whiterabbit] Aslan’s an atheist? Boy, did Lewis get that wrong then! [/QUOTE] Asian and Harris were in a debate. Which side was Harris on… Which was Asian on… Think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019/129 "2007-02-24T16:14:08Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] Asian and Harris were in a debate. Which side was Harris on… Which was Asian on… Think about it. [/QUOTE] Allow me to say it before anyone else. _Whoosh_! [SUB]Aslan, not Asian. You know, the from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.[/SUB] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athiests-need-to-just-shut-up-part-ii/392019.md?page=6)