A false dilemma, since that assumes that the only choice is religion or gutters. And frankly, even if that was true they’d likely do less harm to others in the gutter than out of it and voting for laws to persecute people or beating them with bats for being gay or otherwise acting like a True Believer.
Apples and oranges. I want my doctor, who I am choosing to provide a service for me to be a medical professional, basing his treatment decisions on the best available evidence.
I want my neighbors (and the people in my community at large) to be honest, tolerant, giving, and compassionate people.
I’d prefer a person who practices homeopathy for a neighbor if he’s kind and decent and respectful of the folks around him over having the best neurosurgeon next door who plays music loud despite requests to turn it down, shouts lewd comments at passing women, and proclaims his hatred of the gay people at the end of the block.
It sounds like you’re judging religious people based on how good they are as your neighbors. I’m judging them on a much broader scale. If you don’t fall into one of the areas religion discriminates against, then you shouldn’t have a problem with religious people directly.
But what about their affect on society? What if that neighbor was against vaccination? Wouldn’t it bother you that his flawed logic poses a threat to society even thought he’s always nice to you?
A fundamentalist religious person tries to kill you.
Not all of them or even most of them here in the US. Just a few nuts.
Of course. That’s why we have public health laws.
I’m judging people based on how they behave. If I were to judge them based on whether their belief systems were rational or not, I’d have to give 99.9% of them a “thumbs down”.
People aren’t rational. But they have the capacity for goodness and decency. I’m for anything that brings that out in them.
Because they are restrained from doing so. Remove the laws keeping them from indulging themselves and you’d see them dumping unbelievers of various types into mass graves. They’ve certainly tried to kill enough people in legal ways, such as by lying about condoms all over Africa, opposing the HPV vaccine, supporting the murder of gays outside of the country, opposing any attempt to stop AIDS financially pressuring hospitals all over the third world to refuse pregnant women medical care, and so on. And there’s certainly lots of support for the fanatics who actually get their hands dirty and murder doctors who perform abortions or gays.
That is some fundamentalists-not all fundamentalists are that way. For instance some such as the Mennonites are absolute pacifists who refuse violence even for self-defence. It’s not any more fair than generalizing all atheists as Stalinists or hedonistic degenerates. Plus most conservatives support reasonable compromise on such issues as homosexuality for instance letting it be decided by states or allow civil unions.
So what? There’s enough of the ones who support violence or more subtle means of causing harm (such as lying about condoms) for them to kill people by the millions, given the chance. The fact that a few will shake their heads “tsk, tsk” over the carnage won’t do any good.
There’s no “reasonable compromises” to be made there. Bigots should never be compromised with.
I also like goodness and decency, but religion brings it out of people at a cost. It’s not a cost I’m comfortable with for nice neighbors.
Especially since religion isn’t that necessary to keep people nice. If religion were outlawed and every copy of the bible were burned tomorrow, your nice neighbors would still be nice.
I don’t really know anyone who’s a nice person who would suddenly start acting like a jackass if he found out God doesn’t exist.
The thing with atheists is that they are more willing to compromise their views. There is no document telling them what they have to believe or else they’ll burn in hell.
While some atheists might not behave intelligently, they are not doomed from the starting line to end up there. Religious people are like horses with ankle injuries. They are almost guaranteed to run off course.
If you multiply atheists and religious people to the millions, the atheist group would have a much better chance at coming up with rational and intelligent decisions.
Ah, but is it religion itself that is the problem – or the person behind it?
No, it’s not a cop out. Who came up with religion in the first place – human beings. And religion is thus, like human beings, flawed. Religion can have a positive influence, or a negative one. You have people like Fred Phelps, or you have Oscar Romero. You have Gandhi, or you have Osama Bin Ladin.
And I’m not saying that atheists are bad either, so don’t even go there. I’m saying that you can’t just say, “well, religion is teh eviiiiiiiiiillllll!!!” It’s not that simple.
One nut was enough to bring down the Murrah Federal Building. One indisputably Christian nut, at that.
Timothy McVeigh was an anti-government wacko all right, but was he a fundamentalist? I don’t recall so, and the Wikipedia article on him gives no indication of such.
Religion. Religion demands poor judgment in order to be taken seriously, and it imposes a false view of the world. Religion by nature renders the people infected with it less capable than they would otherwise be at anything requiring judgment, which of course includes morality.
There have been claims that he was connected to the Christian Identity movement, Christian racists. They seem to produce a fair number of so-called “lone wolf” terrorists.
[QUOTE=It’s bad because while he’s stabilizing his own life he’s not helping the lives of women, homosexuals, sexually active teenagers, or the advancement of science.[/QUOTE]
See, this is a very ignorant statement. I’m what you would probably call a Papist. I fully support women, homosexuals, sexually active teens, and the advancement of science. Most of the people I know in my church do also. My family is very involved in Social Justice causes ranging from homelessness to immigration to education. Truly religious people don’t stand up and shout at everyone else that they are wrong and are going to burn in hell, they don’t (for example) burn the holy books of other religions, they down look down upon ANYONE for whatever beliefs that they may or may not have.
“Love your neighbor as yourself”
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow”
do you, as an Atheist, object to either of these statements? These are major religions boiled down to their very essence. Call it what you will, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. It’s all about treating people right, what’s to object to about that?
Yes, there have been many horrible, awful, unspeakable things done in the name of religion. I’m not denying that. But there have been many horrible, awful, unspeakable things done in the name of politics, and sex, and farming, and art, and facial hair.
Yes, the bureaucratic structure of many religions is flawed and broken. (I defy ANYONE to find a thousand year old bureaucracy that is perfect) but it is up to those within to clamor for change, and to make it right.
Fanatics are dangerous. Fundamentalists are dangerous. Evangelicals can be dangerous.
mix all three (of ANY stripe, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist) and it’s a powder keg.
Aren’t we here to exchange ideas and to try to educate?
:rolleyes: Nor do True Scotsman, I suppose. Whether you like it or not the people who shout and terrorize and kill in the name of their religion are just as much “truly religious people” as those who don’t; more so, if anything.
Nonsense. They are slogans used by religious groups that have lost so much power they can no longer go about torturing and mass murdering people who disagree with them like they used to. So instead, they put on a thin surface of civility; but that certainly isn’t their “very essence”. We have thousands of years of history demonstrating that it isn’t.
Because that’s NOT what they are about. They are about maintaining and/or spreading their particular brand of delusion regardless of the cost to others. They are about ignoring reality in favor of a fantasy. They are about obeying a collection of archaic rules regardless of the harm caused. They are most certainly not about being “nice”.
:rolleyes: Facial hair or farming doesn’t flat out tell you to go and do those awful things. They don’t tell you that people don’t matter, they are just vehicles for souls. My facial hair never told me to kill someone for being homosexual.
Is religion merely a disease, and people are not responsible for their own actions then, Der Trihs? Who invented religion in the first place? Who comes up with these ideas and philosophies?
Well, my facial hair DOES tell me to do things about 6-7 times a day, i tell it to shut up, but that only elicits strange looks in the elevator…
but really, my church, neither local (who I would be MUCH more likely to pay attention to) nor hierarchically speaking, has told me to kill, injure, or even be slightly rude to ANYBODY.
again, what we are dealing with here is that religion, like politics is most personal, most precious, and most satisfying at a local level. I pay little to no mind to the archbishop here, much less to the pope. The pope does not rule my life. My priest does not rule my life. I rule my life. I choose to follow some precepts that I think make sense.
Trust me, I’m not trying to convert anyone here. I’m not about that and I’m smart enough to know that I can’t.
What I’m asking is that you try to respect other’s decisions and other’s thoughts. Listen. Don’t dismiss it out of hand because people whose thoughts and beliefs aren’t yours. Those of us who choose to believe and belong are not stupid. We aren’t deluded or simple minded. Nor are those who choose to believe in nothing. That’s fine. I’m happy that you believe in what you believe in (or don’t believe in, whatever).
Don’t, however, cut someone else down and believe that you are superior just because YOU would never force your beliefs down someone else throat…oh…wait…
nevermind
Just be open, that’s all…
They are responsible the way a drunken driver is responsible.
Frauds and lunatics.
Religion is blatant nonsense. So yes, it says something bad about you if you believe it.
Do you think Satan made me become a drug addict? Do you think God has helped me in my recovery?