I will just say," I do not hate you, and I do not think your not believing in a God is a bad thing". Belief is just that…Belief. It helps some people and others use it to force others to think their way, to me that is an insecurity. We only have the human beings with human thoughts so we either believe in what some human states as fact or not, human say some god said or did something so in reality we believe that person.not God making rules etc.( that can be proven).
I do not think the people who disagree with you(or me for that matter) hate a person because they do not share the same way of thinking!
That characterization is not true of all believers. In fact there are many Christians who are (gasp!) scientists. And I mean real scientists, not young earth/intelligent design “creation scientists.” Plenty of believers - including quite a few on this message board - have no trouble reconciling their belief with scientific evidence.
And please, let’s not make this another thread that turns into the Der Trihs show. His perception of religion and Christianity is more warped than the vinyl records I left in the hot car.
Remember that Michael Newdow challenged the mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at his daughter’s school because of the inclusion of “under God.” The Court ruled that he lacked standing and so did not reach the question, but oral argument was interesting. Stevens, Rehnquist, and O’Connor (who are all gone from the court now) seemed to endorse the idea of ceremonial deism. Thomas indicated that he believed that the inclusion of “under God” was impermissible under existing S.Ct. precedent, but that he thought such precedent should be overturned.
Yeah, it’s funny because there are so many people who claim to believe in God, and yet they don’t act like they would if they really believed in God.
For instance, a preacher wouldn’t have sex with a male prostitute in front of his congregation, because he wouldn’t want his congregation to know. And yet that same preacher will go and have sex with a male prostitute in secret. So if he believed in God, why didn’t he refrain from fucking the prostitute in front of God for the same reason he refrained from fucking the prostitute in front of his congregation? It just doesn’t make sense–or rather, it doesn’t make sense if people believe in God they way they say they do. The answer to the contradiction is that most people don’t actually, really, deep down believe in God.
The other odd part about putting references to God on our money is how unChristian it all is. If people really believed what the Bible said, would they really put the sacred name of God on our profane coins? Jesus and the moneychangers in the Temple, anyone? God and Mammon? The camel going through the eye of a needle?
You’d think Christians would be trying to protect Christianity from the profane world. If they actually believed what Jesus was saying in the Bible, that is.
I’m not seeing a lot of strong arguments here. I think that’s the reason nothing has been done to resolve the constitutional issue. It’s nothing like the free speech issue involved in the pledge. It seems to sit around the line between establishment of religion, and that weasel phrase ‘ceremonial deism’. Until a larger percentage of the politically active population moves that line one way or the other, nothing is likely to happen.
Adding under God to the pledge,nor In God We Trust on our money has not made the country any better,but has caused divisions. There is nothing in the Constitution that says a person cannot believe in a god, nor does it say one god is better than another!
It just states the government cannot favor one religion over another,or non belief! The government must remain secular to protect the minority over the majority so one cannot force their beliefs on another.
Actually, I think making entirely surface concessions to the more radical Christians has done more good than harm. As long as Christians think they are living in a Christian nation, they won’t rise up to try and change it. And it gives so-called new atheists* something to be upset about so they don’t immediately attack Christianity itself.
I also note that bigotry against a group is never any reason to do anything. And that’s what Der Trihs espouses, since he assigns to all Christians his own experiences with a few. Even if that few is a majority, that’s still prejudice and bigotry. I will admit I fear that one day there will be someone with his beliefs who isn’t afraid to act on them in real life.
*I’m using new atheist as the group of people who actively try to shutdown religion. Old atheism only got involved with injustice.
That’s just an example of the double standard favoring religion. I can condemn racism or sexism, that’s OK; I condemn religion (which if anything has done more damage than both combined) and I’m a potential mass murderer.
That’s nonsense. Regardless of my own opinion, other people take the word quite seriously and are willing to act in its name. All the disbelief in the world won’t keep me from being beaten to death for Jesus.
Golly, it would be horrible if atheists took their cues from religionists, wouldn’t it?
So it was better when atheists only came out of the closet to politely ask religionists to to go too far when they pushed too hard? Tell me, throughout history how often has that worked?
The hell it does. You use that word in a way that offends some religionists, and “powerless” is the last definition of that word that will spring to mind. That word is land-mined and barbed-wired, has torn apart families and nations, and has even been used to attack nature itself.
Sorry, but words do mean things. You may think the word god is meaningless, but sadly it is not. And the fact that religionists have to contort and make up BS arguments in order to justify their forcing of superstitions on everyone shows that the word is not meaningless.
As has been pointed out, if the word is so meaningless, why not remove it?
That’s my point, though. People fear the word, and therefore fear God. Remove the fear, and it’s just another boring, random word.
Well…Jesus is different from God. An alternate face for God (perhaps) but Jesus is about love (and smokin’ out & telling stories) while GOD is about creation, beauty, disaster, vengeance, and (if you’re extremely lucky) divine mercy.
More nonsense. I cannot unilaterally force the rest of humanity to change their minds about that word. So no, my dislike of the word doesn’t mean that I’m “afraid God might be real”, nor will my changing my attitude towards the word make it less powerful in any way.
Jesus is about slaughter and God about love or the other way around depending on the mood of the person saying so. Not that love is an especially benevolent emotion, especially in the hands of believers; doing horrible things to people for their own good is a signature behavior of religion.
Under what conditions??
Remember, we are speaking of a (presumably) fictional character – or mythical, whatever. Please cite chapter/verse to support your assertion that Jesus Christ, as presented in the Four Gospels, can be in any, way shape or form be connected with WTF it was you just said, Der Trihs.
Seriously, get a grip on yourself. You’re losing it minute by minute.
Never mind God…that’s a separate topic.
As for horrible things, that’s relative to the observer’s position in space and time, period. (ref: Nietzche’s hawk/rabbit analogy)
