As I pointed out, there is no logical parallel because you are comparing two utterly dissimilar entities. As for the point you are making, a clown claiming you are in it for the power and the money can be ignored. Pointing out that an Episcopalian might be expected to believe in Episcopalian theology, OTOH, is not IMO unreasonable. Expecting that a generic Christian would accept generic Christian theology is neither unreasonable nor a gross generalization.
Let’s take another example: “Citizens of the United States speak English.” Now that’s not true in every case, clearly, but overall it is a true statement. Most Americans do speak English. Is there any justification for someone to claim to be insulted? by that statement. “Soy un ciudano de los Estados Unidos, y sus palabras me duele!”
For those of you who want to read what really transpired, I strongly suggest you try to wade through this thread. The above is just spin.
And gobear, you can’t keep doing this and think you’ll get away with it. People will read what you’ve written; twisting, rephrasing and distorting on different pages or in different threads doesn’t make the earlier shit go away. It just makes you look dishonest.
You are free to be as upset as you want at whomever you want, just as you are free to believe in whatever god you want, and to follow whatever religion you want. I would prefer if you keep your religious clap trap to yourself, but that is my concern, not yours. Fortunately for me, I find you about as inoffensive as a religious person can be.
I don’t know how you can call me dishonest; thank you for linking the thread because it bears me out. You and the others didn’t pay the least attention to anything I wrote because you were already determined that I was “insulting” Chrstians. You chose to ignore the examples I proved to illustrate my point, started out hostile, then called me names for responding in the same vein.
Even in your first post in this thread, you ignore the points I’ve made and just start ouit calling me “dishonest.”
When I complain aobut it, you say I’m acting like a martyr. When Ipost my perspective, you call me dishonest,. When I listen to your points and try to introduce nuance into my argument, you say I’m backpedaling. Why should I waste any more time on you?
What in the world are you talking about? You think that thread “bears” you out? How incredibly delusional.
And now you want to start lying again. 1) I responded to your argument, provided Scriptural reference and ask for a debate; you “acknowledge” that, but refused to even consider the other point of view. 2) As already pointed out in that thread, I most certainly didn’t “start out hostile”. 3) Called you names? Sorry, but if you continually lie, then you are a liar. If you are making gross generalizations bashing Christians (which you still are afraid to directly refute), but cry the victim when some schmucks bash you for being gay, then you’re a hypocrite.
And sorry, I don’t feel like getting into another discussion about the “nuances” of Christianity in another thread with someone who behaves this way. Especially when you’re going to start spinning the other with such vigor that you make O’Reilly look like the Dalai Lama.
I’ve tried being reasonable with you; and I’ve also tried confronting you. Nothing works. Just don’t expect to try to spin that thread here and not have people expose it.
Once again, for those of you who want to know what really happened, go read for yourselves.
Given that I was fighting several people in a pile-on, what could have been a useful discussion got derailed into a dogfight.
Starting a Pit thread isn’t exactly friendly, but your first substantial post read
Tell me again you weren’t hostile from the get-go.
[quote]
Called you names? Sorry, but if you continually lie, then you are a liar.
Gosh, where did that come from? You could have said “gays” or “homosexuals” to illustrate your point. You whipped that “fags” out there to be deliberately infammatory.
If someone’s ethics come from their religion then what’s the difference? I live in Oregon where a coalition of self-righteous religious foks just got their definition of marriage written into our constitution. Their justification? The bible!
I don’t get what your point is, are we supposed to “hate the ethics, love the dogma?”
Gobear has a good point here. Atheism isn’t a group, it is just a label for people who don’t belong to a particular group. There is no reason to assume they have anything else in common other than a “lack of belief in god or gods.” Christians wave around the same instruction book for how to live yet can’t agree on what it says.
For what it’s worth Gobear, it does look like you’re getting a lot of undeserved crap from the “love thy neighbor” crowd, but you’re defending yourself very well.
Nah, no need to bother (further) hijacking this thread. Your lies are pretty clear to all.
I’ll check back later in the other thread to see if you’ve gotten around to responding (as promised). But I have the feeling you’ve fled that place after you were exposed, so now you’ll carrying on here with further lies and spin.
I guess I can add “chicken-shit” to your shining resume. Which isn’t really “name-calling” if it’s true.
I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been doing other things today than respond to you, ands you are way down on the priority list.
Want the rough draft? Here it is, minus the really inflammatory paragraphs I wrote.
Sorry, but that’s al I’ve got, and your lies abotu me don;t make feel like responding. I said that you called me names, you said I was a liar, I cited an example, you ignore it. And then you call me a liar again!
No. I’m definitely not saying that these people deserve any slack. In fact, if anything, the fact that they conceal their true motivation and hide behind religion makes them more reprehensible.
But you don’t seem to understand why I say that religion isn’t the true motivation, so I’ll try to explain it another way. Picture a hypothetical violent homophobe. This person might give religion as their reason for hatred, but does it add up? Do you accept that all other things being equal, this person would be tolerant if religion were removed from the equation? I don’t.
Religion comes up because, consciously or unconsciously, such a person needs reasonable sounding justification for unreasonable feelings. If religion were truly the origin of such hate, it would be widespread beyond imagining. It becomes even clearer if you look at other groups that are targets of hatred - the hate looks much the same, but other justifications come up more than religion.
It would be interesting if someone studied the demographics of a parish that regularly indulged in hate speech. Would the congregation consist mostly of locals who grew up in the parish, or would it consist mostly of those who left their old parish to join one more closely aligned with their feelings. I suspect it would be the latter.
Read a history book. Most likely, after having done so, you would see a collection of people who used religion to justify there beliefs, while I would see the oposite. So I guess nothing would change after all.
If religion were causing people to do these things, why not a modern crusade? A modern inquisition? A modern burning times? All of these events, and more like them, had complex and multifaceted motivations behind them. Do all of them frequently get chalked up to religion in high-school level history books? Sure. Granted. But I tend to think European armies would have sought those lands for Thor with as much enthusiasm as they did for Jesus, and the Spanish would have cracked down and seized the holdings of non-Spaniards in the name of Apollo just as readily as Yahweh.
And I was talking about individual prejudices here, Scott. I wasn’t tackling global political history, but thanks for expanding the scope a bit.
No, actually I was referring to your statement that you hadn’t made any “negative generalizations” about Christians. I provided evidence that that was a lie; you pretended that evidence didn’t exist. Fortunately, others saw it, and can still see it, right here. Oh, and that was a few days ago, my friend.
Let’s get one thing straight: I never called you a “fag”. I may have called you other things, most of which are true, but “fag” wasn’t one of them. That’s such a blatant distortion of what I actually said that it’s laughable. But if you, or anyone else for that matter, actually thinks I called you a “fag”, then I urge you to report me to a mod. See how far that gets you.
Bosnia (Roman Catholics, Serbian Orthodox, Muslims)
India (Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Aboriginals, etc.)
Indonesia (Christians, Muslims)
Middle East (Christians (to a small degree), Jews and Muslims)
Northern Ireland (Protestants and Roman Catholics)
Sudan (Christians, Muslims)
Oh, and Viking law said, as far as I could tell, “It is a-ok to go out and kill those weaker than you.” It sounds good for justifying conquering foreign lands, but it doesn’t hold a candle to verses in the torah/old testament, which said, get bloody revenge for things that never really happened.
Scott,
Thank you so much. I can’t wait for my new books to arrive so I can see what you are talking about. I’m especially surprised that ethnicity has nothing to do with to do with the situation in Croatia, but I guess I can stifle my dismay until I get the book. Do you need my mailing address? Thanks again, this is most generous.
Your pal,
W.
Good examples. Minor nitpick on your first one: Fram all that I’ve read, the Ustashi were a paramilitary group resembling the Blackshirts and Brownshirts with a Fascist (literally) ethnic-cleansing agenda. They were less interested in the Serbs being Orthodox than in the Orthodox being Serbs. It doesn’t detract much from your point, but suggesting it was primarily religious-oriented is in error. Rather, that particular one was primarily interethnic conflict turned to institutionalized terror.
However, it appears that being part of a nebulously defined religious or social group is now grounds for being condemned for the idiocies of the extremists affiliated with that group. Like Angua, who as a Muslim is clearly a terrorist. Or zev, clearly a part of the International Jewish Conspiracy. And gobear himself, who is clearly out to destroy the institution of marriage. I used to know the term for this sort of pigeonholing of people; can anyone help? And by the way, does anyone know where the Straight Dope Message Board that used to be at this URL went to? I vaguely remember that they were good at helping people make the sorts of distinctions that gobear seems to be having a problem making.
