I understand your explanation, but I would ask you to be more careful with your statements. Regardless of what you meant, it’s clearly not what you said.
It is a valid comparison, as some beliefs are “right” here, and some are completely “stupid” and “deserved to burned at the stake”. I have a right to believe X should be illegal. You have the right to believe that only Y should be illegal, but that doesn’t make either of us automatically bigots, stupid, or crazy.
Oh, and as far as the angel thing, to be really picky, disturbed/crazy/delusional isn’t the same thing as stupid.
Why do people accept Bush as religious. He says he is born again. Great ploy, all his playboy,cocaine,drinking days are suddenly gone. I dont buy it. He has a lot of innocent blood on his hands. he makes decisions that to me, are sacrificing human life for money. Busn cannot be impeached. He has insurance against it. Cheney. He represents everything Bush stands for plus the intellect the prez cant muster.
Belief in angels is a stupid idea because it’s a religious idea? No, Cardinal, it’s stupid because it’s a superstitious idea. I suppose most Christians believe angels exist; but between that and the idea that the premise of Touched By an Angel or It’s a Wonderful Life (or, for that matter, Rose is Rose) bears any real relationship to the way God’s universe is set up, there is a great gulf fixed. After all, even the Bible has very little to say about angels. They don’t seem to get out of Heaven much. Except for Michael in Revelation (canonicity doubtful, in the opinion of Martin Luther), no angel is even given a name, that I can recall.
Moving from Heaven to Hell – wouldn’t you call a Christian who believes demonic possession is a real and frequent phenomenon a highly superstitious, possibly even dangerously superstitious, person, even though the Bible describes Jesus himself as an exorcist?
Even that might be saying too much. Democratic government, if it is truly democratic in the sense of responding to the popular will, will be unjust whenever the people really want it to be. King Demos can turn tyrant as readily as any other king. The slaughter of the people of Melos was authorized by the Athenian popular assembly.
The real theory of democracy is that, good or bad, just or unjust, efficient or inefficient, it is the most legitimate form of government. “Executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony!” Or, as H.L. Mencken put it, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
In fact, to expand, I find it insulting that people come on here, meet a person of relative intelligence from a religious/spiritual background/belief they don’t share, and then greatly insinuate that since they have finally met one with a brain, surely they must admit that the bulk of the belief system is crap.
Certain words jump to mind, but partly to preserve my miniscule rep around here: Go jump.
And to drag this out into tiny little annoying bits, I find that I’m still mad after posting both those things above. If I’m only going to be insulted, then there’s no point in coming back, and ya’ll can have your playpen to confirm your opinions and biases to each other. That’ll be productive.
Yes, I know someone will come along and make some witty remark about something that puts me and/or Jesus/God/religion down, but the fact is, either this forum can be a place for informed dialog that doesn’t assume people coming from other places are idiots, or it can be a place to learn and discuss.
Let me make it clear, that no matter what form it takes, the next person to come by and make a disparaging remark about my views or person is exactly confirming my point. Not that you can’t disagree, but that the assumption of idiocy is so imbeded.
This is exactly why I hardly ever come in this forum. I don’t find this board to be productive on these or related topics.
Anyone in the 21st Century who believes in demonic possession is not exactly making a case for his own brilliance. If that’s not superstitious and credulous, I don’t know what is. Qualifying it as something you believe happens only infrequently does not make it any less goofy. You might as well say that you don’t think very many centaurs exist.
Anyone who consistently insults the very idea of religion is not exactly making a case for his own tolerance. If that’s not small minded and overbearing, I don’t really know what it is. Trying to hide it in high handedness and superior attitude does not make it any less condescending or annoying. You may as well call every religious person on the board, and certainly every Christian, a complete idiot (and in fact, you basically have, repeatedly).
DtC, seriously, you make sweeping statements almost constantly that show a lack of consideration for the people reading them. I’m not just talking about this thread. I know what I’m talking about; I am a recovering insensitive-broad-talker. I hope that some day you will break from the idea that discussing means making sweeping generalized statements from your own view without regard to the reactions you may cause or implications you may be trailing in your wake.
And darn it, you confirmed what I said about the next person to come by with a “witty” insulting remark, assuming other people are idiots. I put up the “wet paint” sign, and man, you sat on the bench anyway.
And before this can spiral out of control into some other dimension of wacky “No, you’re the poopyhead”, I quit. If anyone has something constructive or inquisitive or funny, or um, salient to say, email or IM me.
[raises hand] Of you ask me, given the election history of recent years, and many people’s adamant fanaticism in supporting the "guy mentioned in the OP’ despite all his failures, blunders, misstatements, etc etc etc, I’d say a huge percentage of the voters are not only uninformed, they are also willfully and deliberately ignorant.
(I’ve been away, fighting computer gremlins.)
American skeptics require no one to tell us that all the world, or all America, does not think entirely just like us. We are confronted with reminders every day. Does it matter? Something like, say, demonic possession either is real or it is not real, regardless of how many people believe in it or don’t believe in it.
