[hijack]That was really, really interesting.
Hey Der, have you read this blog? I read it for the Chick dissections, which are amusing, but it still astounds me how exactly like you he sounds.[/end hijack]
I don’t have too much trouble with the mild-mannered believer. It’s the ones who want god legislated into MY life that deserve public scorn. LOUD and relentless scorn. They are doing much more than entertaining a fantasy in their head. They are trying to control the lives of people who don’t share in their delusion. Their world view is dangerous. I’ll start with those who claim we are a “christian nation.” Fuck 'em. They’re a public menace.
Doesn’t civil disobedience depend on the fact that if your opponents aren’t reasonable, the whole world will know it? I always thought it was something akin to a PR action…
something like… they can’t willy-nilly kick any non-threatening protesters in the teeth because then this minor civil disobedience will escalate like a motherfucker and before you know it riots are everywhere?
In some places you can’t buy booze on Sunday. Or any other day. Mostly you can buy it every day of the week.
Der Trihs, I am an atheist, and I am well aware of all the evil that can be laid at the doorstep of religion, but I can also see the good that it can do. My girlfriend, who my love for is probably beyond your ability to conceive, is religious, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Her religion gives her something you and I can never have, and I wonder if you aren’t just a little jealous. Could that be driving your hate? We have been through a lot of ups and downs over the years. When times are bad, she has faith they will improve. When times are good, she is wise enough to not get swelled about it. She has been an island of stability and reason in my life, and I attribute it to her faith.
I myself read the Bible on occasion. Whatever it’s inspiration, the authors knew as much about human nature and foibles as any modern theoretician of the mind. The precepts outlined in the ten commandments are a prescription for a happy life. Don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t mess with your neighbor’s wife, don’t envy, don’t lie, respect your family, take a day off once in a while. You have a problem with any of that?
Religion in and of itself isn’t evil, it is the people who get carried away with it, and in those cases they are doing it wrong, taking it in the wrong direction. I have been to mass with my girlfriend, and there is nothing evil going on in there. Songs are sung, the guy gives a talk that is uplifting and usually good advice, everyone has some fellowship and feels good, and they toss a dollar or two in the plate to keep the light bill paid. What is so evil about that? Have you ever even *been *to a church service? Or do you spend all your time reading about The Crusades and Torquemada while you cover your walls with newspaper clippings about people who shoot up abortion clinics?
I don’t believe in God, but I do believe that abortion is a nasty business. One of the things I respect about my girlfriend is years ago when she was with a child she couldn’t care for, she carried it to term and gave it up for adoption. She suffered considerable inconvenience for her belief that life is sacred. Would you have the integrity to carry your beliefs that far? She sleeps with a clear conscience knowing that somewhere out there is a woman who wouldn’t be alive today had she taken the easy way out.
Her kindness and concern for other people, animals, and the world in general springs from her faith, and she has done much to heal my misanthropy, a gift she could not have given me if she was not who she is, and part of that is her faith in God.
We get it. Religion has done some bad things. It has also done some very good things for people as well. You can use a saw to build a wonderful house, or cut off someone’s arm. Don’t blame the tool.
And, as an added thought, it does seem to many scientists, that some people need religion and some people don’t. It may have more to do with brain chemistry or something like that. In other words, they can’t help being religious, any more than you and I can help being atheistic. Would you blame someone for being gay? Religious people may just be born that way. You state that you don’t think hate is wrong, but, to hate someone for a trait they have no control over, that they are born with, well that sounds like, wait for it… BIGOTRY! I know you have a problem with that.
Life isn’t “sacred”, Stan! It has only as much meaning as we and those we know attach to it. Accepting that death is likely to be the end of existence, and that if you fuck up this life you won’t get another crack at the whip, is likely to be far more beneficial than folling the edicts of any holy book.
I think I have trouble with the “mild-mannered believer” that stands by and lets radical religionists take the lead without loudly proclaiming the wrongness-the ones that sit quietly in church when the padre says something they might disagree with, the ones that faithfully listen to religious radio without protesting when a nutcase starts yelling about conspiracies, the ones that think that saying in a meek and mild voice “Well, they don’t really represent Christianity” means jack shit to the public at large. The radical religionists that, by and large, represent Christianity to the public(and screw all you who deny this-the squeeky wheel gets the grease, so if you want some other viewpoint to represent Christianity you damn well better start squeaking louder) want to infringe and repress because their god tells them to, and the meek and mild go with the flow because, while their Christian brothers and sisters may be “misguided”, it’s better than being labeled an atheist.
That’s better.
Do you really think that belief is hardwired into your brain and has nothing to do with there actually being a god to believe in?
And if there was a god, doesn’t anyone think it’d be sick of all the wheedling, bickering and pleading coming from its ‘children’? Maybe there was a god and now it wants you to stand on your own feet - ever considered that, you religious types? Or maybe god is like Sue’s dad in the Johnny Cash song and wants to toughen you up with some good old criticism?
Also, bearing in mind the tendency of those religiously inclined to believe in some sort of judgement day within our times, I feel it neccessary to throw a spanner or two in their self-fulfilling prophecy mindset, now and again.
We don’t hate them, we just hate what they do.
On most things Der Trihs and I disagree, but on religion we are pretty much spot on.
When I drive down a road in Yemen in the middle of summer and the temperatures are in the 40’sC and I see people working in the fields where the men are wearing shorts and light clothing and the women working next to them dressed in full burkha’s, I pisses me off. The utter stupidity that there is anyone who would be interested in a woman covered in dirt and sweating to the point of heat exhaustion astounds me. Add to that she is surrounded by her relatives so no one could get close to her even if they wanted to. But they are just ignorant farmers who, it could be said, don’t know any better and are products of the brainwashing of their religion and those who use it to their own ends.
What really pisses me off is those who grew up in the West and attended mostly secular schools who really should know better. It is like they’d rather be living in Yemen wallowing in the dirt with their women essentially locked up in their houses or encased in fabric. It is the fact that they let others co-opt their beliefs to try and stop others from living lives differently from the herd eg. gays shouldn’t marry. And it is the fact that the beliefs themselves are so full of holes and lack of evidence that if they had come across it in a book and never heard of it before, they’d laugh at the thought that it was real. Yet, they want those of us who can think critically to give those same farcical beliefs as much weight as theories that actually do have evidence to support them.
No, they don’t deserve respect. People won’t change if you let them think that every idea is the same as every other one. Some ideas are bullshit.
If there was any merit to religion, the believers have had thousands of years to produce credible evidence. Yet they haven’t done so. There is not one ‘God’ stuffed and sitting in the Smithsonian. They haven’t produced Jesus or even a lowly angel to confirm that gays are sinners. They have nothing other than their ‘holy’ books. Books that are written, printed and distributed by men. No sign of god in any of that process.
Well, it’s annoying, for sure. I was referring more to the non-church-going believer who just thinks theres’a a Big Vibe In The Sky, but don’t have an interest in making public policy based on it. I agree that those who say “but not all _____s are like that” are guily by association.
‘It does seem’ and ‘many scientists’ eh?
Well that settles it then.
I don’t think that’s the reason that people who don’t say anything don’t say anything. I think they don’t say anything just because they don’t want to fight about it. They don’t want to be confrontational…they just want to leave other people alone about religion and be left alone.
Well, some people have theorized it. I am no expert and there may or may not be anything to it. I does seem that some people are more predisposed to spiritual belief than others. Whether that is nature or nurture is not even that important. Some people seem to need religion for their psychological well being whatever the reason, and I do not begrudge them the comfort and good feeling that brings them, as Der Trihs seems to.
And if he were to talk to my girlfriend, with all his religion is evil routine, she would point out, quite correctly, that Jesus never said to act like that, and in fact told people to do quite the opposite, love their neighbor, have compassion for those less fortunate, etc. She opposes those who, for example, withhold medical care from their children out of religious dogma, or take up arms in the name of God.
I am reminded of the story of the man who was in a flood. The waters started to rise and a fire engine came by his house. The firemen asked if he needed help. “No the Lord will provide!”. Later on, the waters were higher, and he had to go up on the second floor to stay out of the water. A rescue crew came by in boat. The skipper asked him “Do you need any help?” “No, the Lord will provide!” Pretty soon, the waters were so high, the man had to climb up on the roof. A helicopter had been patrolling the area, looking for any stragglers. “Let us rescue you!” the pilot said through the helicopter’s loudspeaker. At the top of his lungs, the man shouted, “No, the Lord will provide!” Well, the waters kept rising, and the man drowned. When he got up to heaven, he asked God, “Why did you let me drown? I had faith in you!” God said, “I sent you a fire truck, a boat and a helicopter, what more did you want!”
Yeah, old joke. But you get my point. According to my girlfriend, God gave us a brain for a reason. If people still act like fools, who’s fault is that?
I deny this. Screw me, I guess.
I’s like to see some backup to this assertion.
And Der Trihs is not to be worried about. I find his belief in the evils of religion and the lunacy of people like me to be… disturbing, to say the least, but I don’t fear him or worry about him.
He’s said time and time again that he would never actually ACT on his beliefs, because he is afraid of what the nutjobs might do to him.
Standard Der Trihs is an idiot post.
Yea - well it’s a shame the religious won’t extend that courtesy to the rest of us isn’t it.