"I am to the left politically, and separate my politics from my beliefs. "
The Left and the religious are actually natural allies in many ways and I don’t mean with proseltyzing either. 
Problem is, a lot of people on the Left think religion=BAD and there’s quite a few people who are religious that are right-winged. Heh
I have no problem with that.
Interesting debate, indeed. So, you’re worshipping a malevolent deity who will make otherwise decent people be tortured forever (as in forever) for not having dared not to follow his will. Why exactly did you choose to worship this evil being (beside him Bhaal, Tezcatlipoca and the like appear like choirboys. At least being sacrified is a displeasant but brief experience) :
-Because you feel you have no choice since you would risk these eternal tortures yourself if you dared to refuse worshipping this monster?
-Or because you actually think this awful and despicaple deity is right in choosing to roast forever people who didn’t submit to his will, hence you’ re as evil as he is and deserve the contempt of decent human beings?
Note that the fact that I don’t personnally believe in this deity doesn’t change a thing, since you do : you believe in an obviously evil god, and seem perfectly OK with me or other people being tortured for not crouching in front of him. Could you give any reason why I should respect you?
(hopefully us atheists live in a relatively safe world where we only have to worry about minor things like nuclear wars, epidemics and the like, and not about cosmic all powerful petty vengeful sadists)
I just want to say, knowing dreamer in real life, that she has a pretty open mind. She doesn’t spend her life judging people IRL. I am gay and we are great friends. She has never tried to change me or preach to me or anything like that. We agree to disagree on some things but she is far from judgemental. I think she may have just come off badly in that thread. She’s a good person.
Sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t bring real life into this but I just wanted to share my experience. Flame away:)
You forgot to add the trademark symbol when you mentioned the WV_Woman approach.
It’s patented, ya know 
A good person who’s OK with me being tortured forever for not worshipping her divine butcher? No way…
I’m wondering if in the afterlife she intends to help feed the fires to make sure we’ll suffer as much as possible or if she will simply be happy singing the praises of the monster she worships while millions (possibly you included in her mind, if she happens to think her deity condemns homosexuality) will be screaming in agony forever for not having had the correct attitude towards him during our short lives?
dreamer may still want to defend her statement, but she didn’t say what you think she did, SisterCoyote. The quote was about how non-religious people feel about sex, it says nothing about how religious people (Christian or otherwise) feel about it.
That’s a fine line to draw, perhaps. But since this thread is about clarity of arguments and sweeping statements, I wanted to see if I could bring a bit of clarity to this one.
Good point, SisterCoyote and it gives me a chuckle that you posted it on Lughnassad.
clairobscur, it’s not only the threat of Hell that makes this particular deity evil; there’s ample testimony in the Bible as to his character.
dreamer, you complained earlier in this thread about your treatment in GD, but then you turn around and say “I have no problem with that.” Which is it?
I know…But she didn’t state she was a literalist and believed that her god drowned everybody because he was pissed nor that he ordered the slaughter of whole people, men, women, children and oxes alike (apart from the young virgins who could probably be put to some better use which is not explicitely stated in the sacred books but that her god seemed to approve). On the other hand, she stated most of us will defnitely go to hell. Something she probably approves since she worship this god… I’m just calling her on what she said…
Thank you musicguy for saying that. I don’t think I’m the only one who has “let their fingers do the talking” without realizing that your going to (unintentionally) offend and piss some people off. I think the fact that on this board the “written words” are left to linger and to be studied over, compared to talking IRL and explaining what it is you meant to say, makes it that much easier to jump on. I never meant to be taken to the pit over something I said about my beliefs. I didn’t mean for my words to come out so harshly, they just did and I do apolgize if that means anything.
Wait a minute, shouldn’t you (as my good friend) be protecting me and fighting people off with a shiny sword or something? 
Not to be a total prick, but who gives a flying fuck what she acts like IRL? I don’t think I’ll ever meet her, so her RL behavior has no impact on me. If she wants leeway, then she’ll have to earn it on here, not by being Mother Teresa IRL. (Although, to be fair, it seems that she has earned a bit of grudging respect, insofar as I don’t think she’s considered a troll or a drive-by).
I don’t see why. We (the GD community, of which I’ve nominated myself a spokesperson :D) hold you to the same rules we hold everyone else to. If you say something, back it up. If someone posts that gun control regulations kill more people than they save, they’d better post a link. If someone maintains that there were only two “back alley” abortions before Roe v Wade, they’d better have some numbers. If a third person feels that the Bible is inerrant and internally consistent, they’d better be prepared to resolve any refutations raised. Merely saying, “I know this is true, trust me” is not an acceptable defense for any of these positions.
I don’t get it. You believe that demons can hurt lil ole agnostic me. How am I unaffected by this?
In general, what do you mean when you say this, that, and the other is the truth to YOU? I mean, if “this” in the previous sentence is that the Bible is inerrant, “that” is that Jesus died for my sins, and “the other” is Jesus will return… doesn’t that make it true for ME as well? Why do you maintain that what you hold to be truth is truth for only you? I mean, if I were to say that the truth to me is that cookie dough ice cream is the best ice cream out there, then that works, because you can have your own version of the truth in your own head, and it’ll never conflict with my truth. But when you make statements about the past, present, and future in the entire world, you can no longer say that they’re the truth “to you.” I utterly fail to comprehend both what you mean and why you say it when you maintain that something is true “to you.”
Quix
If I was "OK’ with anyone being tortured forever I wouldn’t spend a second of my time telling anyone about the love of God. It is the opposite that is in fact true. I tell because I do care, whether you believe any of that or not.
And WV_Woman, next time I discuss your “approach”, I will not forget to add a trademark symbol
Ah, that’s true. I seem to have gleaned from other threads that she is a literalist, but it’s perfectly possible that I’m mistaken.
If that makes you a prick, I guess I am one, too <looks down, wails, “I want boy parts!”>. I have no intention of attending a Dopefest, so I can only know posters by how they present themselves in the fora.
And no, unlike WV_Woman, she is not a drive-by… or, should I say, fly-by? <brushes droppings off shoulder>
No, Robot Arm, you are correct. Thanks for clearing that up.
**Squish **, my “no problem with that” statement was in answer to * "If you choose to debate in GD, you’d better be prepared to defend and uphold your positions with consistancy, reasoned assertions, and relevant cites. If you fail to do this in GD, expect to get your fanny chewed off. *.
So I guess I’m getting my “fanny chewed off”.
That is not how I feel about my experiences with people on this board. I’ve met a few of you and hope to meet more and the conversations I have and read here have impact on my life. If your a prick here then I expect you to be a prick IRL, so that just gives me fair warning
I may say “I know this is true” and I may say it alot about my beliefs. We’ve already gone down the road of proving his existence or not so “my personal experience with God” is an acceptable defense IMO. The reason I say things are true “only to me” is because some people would get pretty upset if I were to say “it’s the truth, nothing but the truth and you are wrong”, and I’m not into being a negative force here. I believe the future and all things in the bible are truth for us all, but who knows, if you don’t believe it maybe you will be 6 feet under while I’m in Heaven doing what I knew the future to be for me.
Um.
My point was that if we take the converse (or whatever) of her statement, we get the implication that “most religious people disapprove of [pre-marital] sex.”
Since most of the religious people I know fall in the matt_mcl camp, this statement strikes me as patently untrue, and more than a little disingenious.
For clarity of statement, that should have read, “most non-Christians.” I don’t see that dreamer has a whole lot of experience with those of us who are religious, but not Christian. And, had she put it that way, I wouldn’t have felt the need to comment at all.
That’s all I’m asking, as someone who is religious, but not Christian. Okay? Sheesh.
Squish - is it Lugh already? 
Oh, I also meant to say (I do this in RL too :D)–
Love him or he’ll torture you eternally? Wow, what a choice…
If you weren’t OK with anyone being tortured forever, you couldn’t have the slightest respect for a deity who intend to torture these people forever. Either you don’t realize what you’re speaking about (a god hateful and vengeful enough to torture forever people because they don’t display the proper respect) either you knowingly support one of the darkest and ugliest cult ever invented. I guess it’s the former.
How can you, even for a
It is the opposite that is in fact true. I tell because I do care, whether you believe any of that or not.
[/quote]
If you weren’t OK with anyone being tortured forever, you couldn’t have the slightest respect for a deity who intend to torture these people forever. Either you don’t realize what you’re speaking about (a god hateful and vengeful enough to torture forever people because they don’t display the proper respect) either you knowingly support one of the darkest and ugliest cult ever invented. I guess it’s the former.
How can you, even for an instant, believe that most of us will be tortured by this god of yours and pretend at the same time that he “love” us? How twisted has your mind to be to support such totally contradictory statements?
Despite all our imperfections, most of us wouldn’t torture another human being. And nobody would have the gall to call those who would “loving”. Despite all the crimes committed by my fellow humans, I prefer them to your dreadful god.
Picture for an instant a “loving” father horribly torturing his children because, say, they were forbidden to eat the cookies and nevertheless eat them. Even if he tortured them for hours, it wouldn’t come close to this deity of yours. Now, try to tell the neighbors that this guy is a friend of yours and that actually he loved them. That’s exactly what you’re doing now. Picture it . Really. Imagine the screams and the despair of the children, and repeat “he loves them”.
Thanks. You warn me not to eat the cookies because daddy will break all my bones and skin me alive if I do. It would be fine to warn me against this monster if it weren’t for the fact that you approve daddy and think that a children eating cookies indeed deserves to be tortured to death.
I hope my post didn’t seem harsher than I intended. I was pretty sure what you meant, but that converse statement you posted doesn’t quite follow from the original. I can see how you’d draw that implication, though. I’m sure there’s a fancy term for this sort of thing, but my last formal logic class was way too long ago.
I also think dreamer’s orignal statement is provocative enough, even taken absolutely literally. But if it’s going to be debated, let it be debated for what it is.
That’s all I’m saying, as someone who is non-religious, but has issues with pre-marital sex. Okay? Cool.