This is just a general rant about the state of America, and the world in general. Seriously, some of the stuff I see people say and do makes me want to jump of the tallest building I can find…
Let’s kick this rant off with the obvious: So Obama finally lets everyone see his birth certificate. Why the hell did he refuse to show it for this long? Who knows. But more importantly, why are people so obsessed with seeing it?! Calm down douche-bags, just because he refused to show it doesn’t make him a Kenyan Communist Fascist Muslim! Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of reasons to not approve of Obama’s presidency. I disapprove of his foreign policy, I disapprove of his views on the economy… And yet, I manage to voice my disapproval in a calm, mature manner WITHOUT trolling America about a stupid piece of paper. Why can’t half the country do that? Shit like this makes me ashamed of being a fiscal conservative… Until I read some of the things that democrats write about republicans, conservatives, or people with a semblance of religion on this board, or in the news paper, or on TV. Stuff like THAT makes me ashamed of being socially liberal.
And then, for example, we get to stuff like the complete douchebaggery going on around the Gay Marriage debate. Why the hell should anyone care about someone’s sexuality? I think tomatoes are gross. Does that mean I hate everyone who eats tomatoes? No. If I did, people would think I was weird. So why do people care about what homosexuals do? I find sex between two men or two women gross. So I don’t have sex with another man. Why does that mean I need to hate homosexuals? What those assholes who picket funerals do is much worse than having sex with someone of the same gender. And then when I say I’m a conservative, I get identified with those fuckers just because we may or may not agree on our stance on Universal Healthcare? Fuck.
Just as bad are the complete morons who tell us that we’d be better of if every religious person “disappeared”. You know who I’m talking about. Those people make me sick. Newsflash, asshole: Just because you want people gone because they stand against “truth” and “science” doesn’t make you any better than the Al Qaeda assholes who want YOU dead because you don’t believe in Allah or the Crusading morons who wanted you dead because you happened to live on the way to Jerusalem and didn’t have a picture of Jesus on the wall.
This all really boils down to one thing, I guess: (Also TL;DR):
Why can’t any debate, on these forums or elsewhere, focus on the merits of the actual issues, rather than consist purely of personal attacks on members on the other side? Why can’t we put aside our differences and be friends, and then debate the issues themselves? Why can’t we hate the game and not the player?
Yeah, they are better. Unless you think they’d really cream their shorts whenever anyone religious is killed, and enthusiastically encourage murder of anyone religious. Do you seriously think they encourage that? Merely thinking the world would be better off without a certain subset of people is emphatically not a call for murder.
Fine, I accept your point. They are no better than those who agree with Al Qaeda (In theory) but don’t actively support it, or those who believed the Crusaders had a good point but didn’t actually ride up and burn villages.
Although from the way some people I could name act, I wouldn’t be surprised if they ARE happy whenever a religious person bites the dust.
Because life isn’t a game, and because being on the same forum doesn’t make you a friend. Because when someone is supporting actions and beliefs that hurt other people, “let’s just agree to disagree” is no longer a moral option.
What if you merely hoped that at some point, most people would be non-religious (either by current religious people turning non-religious, or future generations growing up less religious), rather than hoping that religious people would be killed? Because I think that’s usually the actual belief of those who say they wish religious people were to disappear…
Would you mind pointing out where I said “let’s just agree to disagree”? What I said was, “Let’s treat other people like other people, and debate the actual issues that are on board”. Remember that even you aren’t always right, and that while you think one view hurts people, the other person holds a belief (which is just as strong and has just as much merit) that says that YOU are the one who is hurting people. So instead of attacking people and becoming part of the problem, why don’t you agree to put personal issues aside and debate what the best solution to the issue at hand is?
Obviously, those people are not as bad as the ones I was talking about, although I must say that that doesn’t exactly sound like an enlightened view either… What if I said, “I hope that at some point, blacks/asians/latinos/gays/those who wear bright pink suits/those who ding-dong ditch will just disappear on their own without being killed”? With the exception of ding-dong ditchers, who I think we all agree suck, that seems mighty bigoted…
And is hoping that racism or sexism vanish bigoted too? You are trying to conflate harmless qualities with religion which is not remotely harmless. Nor are they objectively wrong, which religion is.
This is EXACTLY what I was talking about. You are so set in your anti-religious fervor that you act exactly like those fanatics you hate. A racist would say that the quality of “being black” is inherently evil; one of those picketers you hate so much would say the same about gays. You have NO right to say that all religion is inherently evil and harmful. Some brands of religion are, I agree. But your brand of Atheism is JUST as evil and harmful.
Speaking of the birth certificate, it seems that Obama’s decision to release it has only made matters worse. Apparently, if you download the PDF directly from www.whitehouse.gov[ and open it in Adobe Illustrator, it opens as a document in numerous layers. In other words, it’s a composite image. Click a button, and all the dates and signatures just vanish. Try it yourself.
Now, I’ve no idea why the birth certificate is compiled like that, and I’d appreciate some clarification, but suffice it to say I doubt it’s part of a 50 year old plot to stick a secret…whatever-the-hell-these-'tards-think-Obama-is, in the Whitehouse. Still, this will only make the birthers more screechy and angry. Bad move.
Except that being black or gay isn’t even remotely like being religious so it’s a stupid comparison. Since when is condemning a destructive belief system bigotry? Is it bigotry to condemn racism? Nazism? Communism? It atheism the only philosophical position it is OK to condemn?
And you may not like it, but “I’m right and they aren’t” is a perfectly valid defense when the facts back you up. All the facts are on my side; they can’t say the same.
I have the right to say whatever I like. And there’s nothing wrong in condemning something as delusional and destructive as religion; if pointing out the obvious offends you, too bad. You’re just doing what the defenders of religion often do; since the beliefs you are championing are fundamentally vile and indefensible, you are instead jumping up and down insisting that unbelievers are just as bad and hoping that claim is taken on faith just like all your other claims.