[QUOTE]
Speaking of nonsense.
for almost any human activity, there can be found obnoxious monomaniac extremists; this fact alone is not sufficient reason to despise the entire class of activities, including those who pursue it moderately. Broad brush strokes do not paint truthful pictures.
Well, I’ve noticed all the mainstream religious folks have no problem insulting Phelps and the “Big Offenders” but let the smaller offenders slide as simply “little digressions from the book we all claim to embrace.” The problem is that even those who claim to embrace it can’t agree on what the book means, let alone what the book says is most important. We have plenty of fine believers around here, each one claiming Biblical So-and-So Dude meant this or that.
But what if Phelps is right? I mean, if you believe there’s a supreme being, you have to at least entertain the possibility that you’ve misinterpreted the message he’s sending (or are unworthy of knowing…like all us non-believers who haven’t yet been tapped on the shoulder) and one of the other groups just might know something you don’t.
They spend entire lifetimes joining, falling away, rejoining, switching sides, and all the while admonishing Phelps and his ilk for not believing the bible meant what THEY think it meant; when they haven’t decided for themselves what it meant, where the emphasis should be, or if any of it holds any degree of accuracy at all.
And all this confusion occurs under the umbrella of just one of the handful of major religions. Is everyone else on Earth wrong? You win eternal bliss because you happen to interpret things the way you do and no other opinion counts?
Far be it from me to tell anyone what they should believe. That’s up to you as long as you don’t try to legislate those beliefs. But I agree with Jotun when he says it’s odd that people take offense at criticism of their beliefs when they haven’t offered up anything in the way of evidence that any of it is real, that their way is the Truth ™ OR that the world is a better place because of it.
I thiink religious folks “take offense at criticism of their beliefs” as evidenced by the OP in the same way that atheists take offense when someone says that all environmentalists are terrorists because of Ted Kazyncski and Earth First.
AS Mangetout says, there are crackpots in every large group.
Regards,
Shodan
IMO ,When we take away the illusion of special off limits status to religious beliefs we come to a place where we realize all of us are in the same boat you describe above. While we are alive we are hopefully still learning and growing. When Christians get to a place where they stop seeking and decide, “this is it, I’ve arrived at the truth, mystery solved” then they close their minds and hearts to some degree. The same holds true for non believers. If we truly remove the off limits status for believers then we remove it for non believers as well and those on either side must learn to lose their slightly superior smugness.
I think that’s a good thing.
I agree. I’ve never said there isn’t a god. I just have no reason to believe there is. If someone were to offer up something other than faith to back their belief, I’d be first in line to take a look. But I think that by signing up with one group or another…saying “I’m catholic” or “I’m jewish”…you’re saying you’ve accepted tenets of that faith as The Truth. Now, a person who is inquisitive about religion in general…someone who doesn’t affiliate with any faith…that makes sense to me. But by calling yourself a member of one faith or the other, you automatically discount the other guy’s beliefs and any possibility of being wrong.
I guess “what I so crave” is an intelligent debate with intelligent points that address my arguments rather than characterizing me as some sort of weirdo beset with some neurotic need.
But please rest assured, John, I am not in any way asking you to feed me with that intelligent discussion. I would never, ever ask you for that. Really.
:dubious: Atheism and environmentalism have no particular connection.
As I’ve said before, the logical default position is disbelief in something; it’s the obligation of the believer to provide evidence. Lacking such evidence, the atheist position is superior, whether you like it or not. I’m not going to give religion a false equality just because our culture demands it.
My Bolding - did you mean “environmentalists” there?
I didn’t think of that; I thought he was going with some Christian fundie “unbelievers are all pagan nature worshipers” bit.
To further that intelligent debate it would be helpful if you would simplify matters by telling us just what the debate is. Have you taken a position that you expect to defend? Have you asked a question that you hope will engender enlightenment via discourse? I can’t see it. Maybe it’s just me.
You know, Contra, a logic professor of mine once said that many people use “Maybe it’s just me” as a rhetorical device since they are generally convinced when they say it that it is NOT just them. But in many cases it IS just them. 
I am really just ribbing you a little, Contra. The trouble with the internet is that we cannot convey shades of humour and tongue-in-cheek. You have no doubt had the experience of being taken toooo seriously. So thank goodness we have lotsa 
to make up for the lack of non-verbal nuance. But I digress.
No, I guess it is partly my fault for putting a nut job like Fred Phelps right in the title.
The REAl point I am getting at is the quote by Steven Weiberg about religion. The other point I am getting at is the way religion claims immunity from criticism. Perhaps “immunity” is too strong a word. But let me give you an example. If the Pope visits Latin America (both the present one and John Paul II were consumate showmen) he will hold and kiss little unwanted orphans and everyone will call him a saint. But if you get up and ask if there would be fewer unwanted children were it not for his Churcs campaigns against the availability of contraception in Latin America and Africa, and everywhere else people will listn to them, you are considered an anti-Catholic bigot. How dare you attack the Holy Man from Rome?
Finally, I guess my point is that religion has been an continues to be more of a force for evil than for good. Now, I realize that there are no objective measuremenats of those two things.
But I am sick of people glossing over the crimes of religion as the “failings of mere men” and then answering me that religions do some good things like run hospitals.
Has it occurred to you that one could draw up a list of thousands of wonderful things that the Nazi party and individual Nazis did during the Third Reich? I am not joking, and no, I am not a Nazi. I am just saying that the National Socialist government in power in Germany from 1933 to 1945 did not spend 100% of its time strangling babies and setting kittens on fire. Also, there were at one point several million card-carrying Nazis in Germany. Surely you could have pointed to many who were decent, kind and even exemplary human beings who did a lot of good for others? Surely not every law, social program, or achievement of the 3rd Reich was pure evil? Much of what they did was beneficial, and not only for Germans.
But do I believe that in the all in all, when all is said and done, Naziism was an objective moral avil that the world is well rid of? You bet your ass I do!
My feelings about organized religions are about the same. So I guess that is what the debate is about. Is religion, in the long run, a form of collective mental illness that humanity will someday recover from? Will a more enlightened human race one day look back at the age of Faith in much the same way as we regard the age of witch burnings or the 3rd Reich, as a nightmare period that we would just as soon forget?
Then he’s in touch with a hateful entity that may in fact be a god.
I don’t see why that would be a problem. It’s not any of the gods I would choose to associate with, I have no obligations to or contact with it, and it’s clearly completely ineffectual in the real world if the best spokesman it can persuade to its side is a raving madman. If it had a sane minion who was capable of putting forth its agenda in a way likely to bring it about, I’d worry about it more (in the material and spiritual worlds), but since my largest risk from the existence of this posited god is getting sued by a Phelps for thinking it’s a little weenie bastard that feebly wants people to believe it’s mighty enough to be out of cosmic short pants, enh, why bother?
Ah…but if Phelps is right, that hateful entity is in control of your future! You don’t have the option of associating with him or not once you’re dead. He OWNS you! And if you had to choose between being a hateful prick (or prickess) or burning in an eternal lake of fire, which would you choose?
I guess my point is that the majority of people prefer to pick out and worship a god that is all sweetness and light vs. the Phelpsian version, because the outcome is more palatable. But the basis for choosing The Good God is no more grounded in fact than the basis for choosing The Bad One.
I give the same answer to this I always have: I make the choices that produce the best outcomes based on the knowledge I possess, not the knowledge I might theoretically possess in the unverifiable future.
The knowledge I possess indicates that if Phelps’s god exists, it’s the weenie wannabe on the god block, trying to expand its tribal power beyond a few nutbars with signs and website and an urge to spit on emotionally traumatised people. If this is not the case – if this god has both the power to affect others and the self-control to limit its direct influence to a few frothing loonies despite its obvious raving megalomania – then there is no way of deriving meaningful conclusions from observation in any case.
Most gods are at least part-time bastards, IMO. So are most people, so that doesn’t make 'em special. We can’t all be Kwan Yin.
Well, I can’t tell from your post if you’re a polytheist, but if the Phelps version of god is accurate, there will be no such thing. He won’t be vying for souls against any other gods. He already has all the souls.
Why would you choose polytheism over the Phelps version, other than the fact that existence wouldn’t seem so icky? What made you choose to believe what you believe? (Provided you even DO believe…I’m just asking in a general way…responses can be in the YOU “you” or the collective “you” form.). As the OP stated, history shows us that it ain’t all sweetness and light. What makes people overlook the unpleasant side of religion and hitch their star to the shiny happy stuff?
I’ve actually found over the years that pagans and polytheists tend to be a bit more honest about their god(s) having a Dark Side than Christians ever do. Admittedly, they also have their fluffy-bunnies who get all the information they have about their faith from Llewellyn publications. I’ve found the best way to figure out which are the serious pagans (as opposed to the fluffy-bunnies) is to ask them whether “Harm none” is a commandment, or a warning.
But, as in the other thread, when people try to repsectfully respond to criticism, open to the fact that they are not immune, you paint them as apologists and discount what they say. How does that gets us anywhere?
Well for one thing, it’s not a doctrine in many ( most ? ) of those religions that their god is perfect or all powerful; or even unified in the case of a pantheon. They can admit to a dark side because it doesn’t violate their religious doctrine. Christian generally believe in the 3-O God; omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent; a god like that doesn’t have room for flaws. Of course, it also contradicts the real world rather drastically.
Well then I understand even less about believers than I thought I did. What’s the difference between pagan gods and Phelpsian gods? Warnings? Revenge? Sounds like a waste of time.