…and not that many preachers are “well-paid, well-fed”. Only the Major Leaguers, as it were 
Have you considered taking up yoga?
I suspect he already practises it. He has to be REALLY flexible to get his head all the way up there.
Most of the Christians on this board are moderates. That basically means either they don’t really believe in a lot of what their religion teaches or they don’t care about converting others or forcing others to live the way their religion says they should. That’s nice and all but, as Sam Harris rightly points out, you guys give cover and legitimacy to those who do. I mean, open a newspaper sometime. I don’t really care about you guys since you appear to be sane (delusional, but sane with regards to treating others) compared to the huge mass of religious people.
People are asking how religion harms us when we’re in the middle of a war on Islamic fundamentalism? Holy fuck.
Look at the Middle East…apparently God had a little too much fun in telling too many different people which land will be theirs forever. Maybe he didn’t mark his calendar…oh yeah, and women are dirty and should basically be third class citizens. Kinda harsh.
Oh yeah, and if you point anything like that out you risk being put to death. Damn.
I almost agree with the Catholic Church though with regards to condom use but then my conscience starts to yell at me. I guess you could say Africa needs less people, not more, so although it’s morally bankrupt and I’m surprised more people aren’t crying out for justice, it’s pretty practical also. And you get to be righteous at the same time! Hey, maybe you could even argue they’re actually helping them too (less people = more resources per person).
And hey, it’s almost 2007 and we’re (in the states, anyway) still battling over teaching evolution and basic sex education in some places. I’m sure over the past 50 years that wouldn’t have had much of an effect though. Teens deserve getting STDs if they want to rub their dirty parts together.
Maybe some of the Christians on this board should “speak out.” That’s what you guys always complain about after an act of terror, right? ‘Where’s the Muslim outrage?’ you say, right? Well how about next time you see someone in your own personal lives using religion as a tool of control or shame you yell at them. Tell them Jesus or Mary whispered in your ear. And hey, maybe you’ll get your own religion and get to be a prophet! Worked for Joseph Smith.
If your personal knowledge is always the cure for ignorance, you are indeed a great man. Knowing is not always so great a thing as learning though, and even learning is not the entire essence of human existence. If someone is starving, fighting their ignorance isn’t all that virtuous. Fighting their hunger might be.
Yet, you are sure, without any evidence that Christian faith always arises from ignorance, and sure as well of the unstated assumption that only the wise and knowledgeable are atheists. This has a remarkable similarity with prejudice. I would never entertain the thought that never a fool could be a Christian, nor even doubt my own wisdom is marked with foolishness now and again.
Now I find that my faith is an affront to you, and my beliefs do you harm in your own view. I am not sure what I do that harms you, and your examples thus far don’t seem much of an indictment against me. All that I believe is an expression of ignorance, according to you. Yet much that I believe I came to from study of the works of men, as has your own knowledge.
Perhaps it is because that which I know, for which I have no proof offends you. How you can be offended by my knowledge and demand that I accept your knowledge on no greater authority than your preference is a profound mystery to me. Yet, this, you say is the path of knowledge. It seems no path at all to me, but rather a preference you have, that I do not share. The secular world is not unknowable to those who experience faith. The growth of the love of God with the soul of a man does not need to drive out reason. It certainly does not drive out knowledge.
To ignore begets ignorance. Make no mistake, that is its source. I do not ignore reason. I do not ignore the lessons of the study of the secular world. I simply do not ignore the rest of existence. You feel that denial, and demands for proof somehow make that refusal noble. Yes, you are free to ignore the spiritual aspect of life. But please don’t call failing to do so ignorance. It is not. Christians can be ignorant. So can Hindus or Jews, or atheists. But their understanding of the world is not what makes it so.
Tris
“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” ~ John Locke ~
“It is no profit to have learned well, if you neglect to do well.” ~ Publilius Syrus ~
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung ~
Please tell me you can’t honestly see the differernce, between an aesthetic choice of blue over green and a spiritual choice of belief in a [G]od or not?
Let’s (for the sake of argument) say that there IS a God; I don’t know of a single religion that condemns you for your choice of color, but many that do for your choice of god. If you are wrong about your aesthetics, no big deal. If you are wrong about God…well, I leave the obvious results up to you. I am no “evangalist”, but really am getting tired of seeing people trying to “ban” other people’s beliefs just to get attention.
As far as your assertion that if a Christian becomes apostate, I am totally confused as to your cites.
Again, if this was stated earlier, I apologize but I have decided that I will only respond once to people trying to “stir up trouble.”
I don’t think he did, as the “quoted” part either was made up or taken out of context, as I don’t see the original “quote” in your original post.
Where did you state “one claim of virtue on your own part”?
It’s not so much the personal harm I endure myself, of course. I’m a fairly self-contained chap, able to shield myself, after years of practice, from much of the nonsense that the mass of religious folks seek to impose on me. I haven’t found much relief from the gummint making me pay loads of tax money while letting the churches operate free and clear from taxes, but otherwise I do okay. But living in a diseased society, with evangelicals bellowing in my ears on the subway in the evening and bellowing on the airwaves on the TV in the morning and having a President who fucks up the entire world while reassuring himself that he’s doing God’s will, and watching friends fuck up their lives and instead of realizing how they fucked up just console themselves with the anodyne of “It’s God’s will, that I did all that blow and meth and booze, Hallelulah, Praise His name!,”, it’s just kinda sad, is all. We could do so much better without this millstone of religion retarding people’s minds and holding them back from achieving their potential. Imagine no religion, it’s easy if you try.
Man, I get my very first personal Pit thread for Christmahannakwanzaayule and everyone else got to it and made beautiful arguments before I ever even knew it existed.
Thanks, pseudo! It’s what I’ve always wanted!
Bull and shit. I have NEVER seen say, Polycarp or Tomndebb, or any of the many many religious people I’ve known all of my life, ever express hatred towards atheists.
I have, however, seen many of them express hatred of people with a gigantic chip on their shoulders and a massive persecution complex.
:rolleyes:
Guin, would you take my word for it that Ive received several bits of truly hateful e-mail, signed GOD, assuring me of burning in hell everlasting, in the time since my OP went up?
Well, if not, then I’m testifying here that it is so, by my own personal experience.
I’m not saying that there aren’t people out there like that. I’m saying that not ALL religious people are like that. You get some good ones, and some jerks. You could say the same about atheists-there are some good, and some bad. Isn’t that the way with ALL people?
I can’t say I’ve NEVER seen it (although never from Poly or tom), but it’s exceedingly rare. I say this as someone who went to a Catholic school, but around half my classmates - including most of my friends - were atheists.
There’s nothing that stops religious people from being raging assholes. Of course, our OP and his merry cohorts prove there’s nothing that stops atheists from being raging assholes, either.
Now I’m good and confused. You say that
right after asserting that “I have NEVER seen say, Polycarp or Tomndebb, or any of the many many religious people I’ve known all of my life, ever express hatred towards atheists.”
These seem to contradict each other pretty baldly. Either you feel comfortable making a blanket assertion about ALL (caps YOURS) religious people not being hateful jerks, or you feel confident making a blanket assertion that you’ve NEVER (again, caps YOURS) seen any religious people ever express hatred.
FTR, I’m with you on the first. I think there are some religious people who are well-intended, decent, kind to dumb animals, etc and others who are monstrous , oppressive brutes.
Let me see if I understand, pseudotriton. In your daily life, you meet a lot of Christian fundamentalists who try to preach to you, tell you that you’re going to Hell, and maybe even express some hatred against you because you’re an atheist. So therefore, when you come here, you feel the need to arrogantly preach to Polycarp, Siege, tomndebb and our other liberal or moderate Christians. After all, they’re Christians, and you need to blow off steam for what Christians do to you. Is that correct?
I know, I know, anecdotes =/ samples. I’m Christian, and I fully acknowledge Evolution and the Old Earth as fact. I strongly support Gay Marriage and Pro Choice movements, and oppose teaching religion in school (at least, nothing beyond a basic overview of the precepts as may be relevant in a history or literature course). Oh, I have a 183 IQ, a 3.1 GPA in college currently, and while I never took the SAT (dropped-out before then due to severe problems with depression), I got a 1230 on my PSAT without any preparation back in High School. Am I stupid, destructive, and vile? Do I deserve no respect?
I had a coworker who was an atheist. He had been raised catholic. After years of trying to reconcile his beliefs with atheism’s usual arguments against Christianity, he had realized he didn’t believe anymore and chose to stop practicing. We talked about it a few times, and while I acknowledged that I could be wrong in my faith, I explained that it was something of a gut feeling I had. I found it comforting to believe, and I agreed with what I perceive to be the core messages; tolerance and compassion (New Testament), within reason (Old Testament). We never fought, never got angry. We hung out together outside of work; he introduced me to Halo, etc. Does that sound like I hate atheists? Fear them? That I think there’s something wrong with him for losing faith?
Nearly all the people I know in real life who would call themselves Christian are indifferent to atheism. But they, and I, are annoyed by atheists who feel this burning need to crusade against religion, to falsely vilify it, to portray it as “the mind killer” when many, many, many of history’s best and brightest have been religious people. Pagans, Deists, Buddhists, Jews, and yes, Christians (Catholics even :eek: ).
It may be my limited experiences, but I really, honestly don’t see where dopers like you and pseudotriton ruber ruber come away so deeply convinced of the universal wrongness of religion, and why you personalize it to such a degree, that you must give grief to total strangers about it over the internet, even when they where having discussions to which your debate (of the merits of religion itself) is only tangentially related.
Really, when you want to call out a religious organization for specific harmful beliefs or practices, please do. But could you please keep your judgmental hate and fear of our “superstitions” to yourself the rest of the time?
And please take the time to realize that when you paint with such a broad brush, labeling religion as a whole, you are being just as ignorant and prejudiced as the kind of people you (by which I mean evangelical atheists) seek to hold yourselves above?
PS. In the interests of full disclosure, I will even acknowledge that I do not practice my faith in a church, and that I generally take a dim view of organized religion.
Perhaps you should revisit what the war is against. Last I heard (from the current US President, by the way), the war is against terrorism. Islamic Fundamentalism does not automatically equal terrorism, no more than Christian Fundamentalism does. Both versions of Fundamentalism have their terrorists, to be sure, but that does not make the current war one against a religion.
Also, a couple of other quick points for our distinguished OP pseudotriton ruber ruber:
1.) That point about all the time of yours that’s wasted fighting your “good” fight? That’s a bullshit argument and you know it. If you feel you could put that time to better use, you are perfectly free to do so; you know as well as I do you’ll never accomplish anything with such rants here anyway, except get cheers from your side and boos from their side. Does it somehow make you feel important, or something?
2.) Your comments about people being hypocrites when they advise you to be nice? Your right, except most of the times I’ve seen you point this out, you’re responding to one poster using a different poster’s rudeness. That’s bad form, man.
Besides, the thing is this: They’re not trying to point out or convince you of anything but the fact you’re acting like a jack-ass. It would be more effective if they didn’t stoop to being jerks themselves, but it’s still not the same thing as trying to persuade people to change their world view by insulting them. Do you remember how effective the hippies were at ending Viet Nam or effecting social change? Not very, for the same reasons. It took the Civil Rights movement’s Martin Luther Kings and the like to actually get things done. And we didn’t pull out of VN until the Gov’t had had their noses rubbed in how futile it was.
Ultimately, though, my main point here would be that these dopers are rude to you because you are rude to us. Notice how they (by and large) aren’t rude to the other atheist posters, mods, and SDSAB members. Just dopers like you, der trihs, badchad, etc; and even then, only when you’re making insulting, inflammatory posts.
3.) Quoting John Lennon’s Imagine? Could you pick a worse example? “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can” from the man who lived in the Dakota building, with a view of Central Park (IIRC)? The man was so god-damn rich he didn’t even have a grasp of what he had. He’s the worst sort of hypocrite, and those lyrics are meaningless, trite, unrealistic bullshit. And this from someone who loves the Beatles.
PS. Monty, with all due respect, you make a great point; however, I suspect that with this crowd even indirectly referencing George W. Bush is only going to invalidate anything you’re trying to say. I can’t say I blame them, entirely; he’s turned out to be a pretty god-damn lousy president.
I’m not seeing any contradiction here. Guin says it is possible, but she hasn’t seen it from the noted Dopers or others of her experience. Sounds pretty logical and open to me. She says there are jerks in every group, she just hasn’t personally encountered any to date in the mentioned group. The two aren’t mutually exclusive by any means.
So, George Bush is God’s fault, and God is my fault, and besides, I don’t pay as much taxes as you, on account of my ignortant Christian ways. Oh, and I forgot, Jesus invented bad television, inturrupting your enjoyment of “American Idol.”
Glad you made it clear.
Imagine my shame.
Tris